[MD] Ham on Esthesia

[Squonkonguitar at aol.com]

Mark --

I'm trying hard to understand the point of your  argument.  It would seem to
be based on fundamental logic, and the fact  that I have made some
assumptions.  Frankly, I don't see that I have  violated any logical
principles; perhaps you can point them out to  me.

> But Ham, Quality is not postulated. Quality is  experienced
> and as such is fundamental to Human life.

To me,  that's an assumption.
 
Mark: Hello Ham.
"To an experienced Zen Buddhist, asking if one believes in Zen  or one 
believes in the Buddha, sounds a little ludicrous, like asking if one  believes in 
air or water. Similarly Quality is not something you believe in,  Quality is 
something you experience.” 
Robert M. Pirsig (2000)
I read you have studied music theory Ham?
If you have taken the time to study music at this level, i  assume you have a 
passion or love of music?
Now please? Please, let us not start with the Theodore Adorno  stuff!
I too have studied music, and i found allot of the theory to be  complete 
rubbish.
If i have stepped on your toes here, i apologise. I understand  many thinkers 
adore Adorno.
But I am reaching for music as a common ground between us  Ham.
It is no assumption that you are completely sure you identify  Quality music 
when you experience it is it?
Quality is something you experience.
The whole project of ZMM is to indicate  that Quality is reality.
Lila tackles the question of why you and i may differ in our  choice of 
favourite music.
That difference is down to the entire evolutionary path which  lead to us 
both as collections of sq patterns.


> If you restrict yourself to the analytical then you are  not
> going to address the major concerns you express in your  essay.

Ham: I choose not to "restrict myself".  I use an analytical  approach where 
the
subject matter calls for it; I use analogies or metaphors  where logical
analysis doesn't apply or suffice.  My aim to use whatever  means are at hand
to communicate my concepts.
 
Mark: This is interesting because it may be possible to suggest that even  
analysis is metaphor.
At this level the metaphor of analysis is indicating Quality; all  metaphors 
are metaphors for Quality.
But i can't expect you to see this yet - i think we are too far apart for  
that.
Safe to say, if the above is so then analysis is art.
Many a mathematician would readily agree that mathematics is very  beautiful.

> DQ and sq are experienced differently.
> sq is the  known and dead in a creative sense while
> DQ is always new.

Ham: I  don't know what this means.
 
Mark: You responses are becoming terse Ham. It worries me when this happens  
for it is often a prelude to goodbye.
But we have music to save us!
Let us attend a concert and examine our experience of it in terms of DQ and  
sq?
The lead violinist plays her part in a striking and unexpected way.
You have heard the piece many times before, but what is this? Her approach  
is exceptional.
What has just happened in DQ/sq terms?
Your old experience of the piece is sq.
The new exciting experience is DQ experienced in the moment.

I  said:

> Quality has no potentiality to actuate except for  evoking
> the  subject's response to it. This is why I say Quality  cannot
> logically be theorized as the source of  creation.

Mark:
> But you have just stated, 'x has no potential  except y potential.'

Ham: In this example, it is the subject that has the  potential.  WE respond 
to
the quality or value perceived.  Value is  only passive in evoking our
(active) response.
 
Mark: DQ is experienced as the cutting edge of NOW from which old sq  
patterns are extruded.
Understand the magnitude of what this is saying: You ARE nothing but static  
quality patterns being extruded from the immediate DQ cutting edge of 
experience  Ham.
The ontology is basic: sq patterns - evolutionary related. The oldest ones  
are inorganic (energy mass) the less older ones are biological (meat to use a  
filthy phrase some people find useful) more recent patterns are social (those  
patterns which order and advance groups, the earliest of which may be termed  
rituals, later - just laws, institutions, etc.) and most recent  intellectual 
(science, logic - including maths, philosophy and abstract  thought).
YOU are all of these patterns: Your feet are inorganic atoms and molecules  
arranged biologically into flesh and bone; your feet walk to the voting office  
in order to elect representatives in a four yearly ritual of social 
conformity;  your intellect analyses the proportion of votes and relationships between  
them.
It is an interesting philosophical question as to whether you as a  
particular and unique arrangement of sq patterns is passive to DQ?
An examination of High creativity activity such as musicianship, excellence  
in sport, abstract thought, etc., suggests that all these people drop patterns 
 and merge in the moment of Dynamic Quality. This is my personal area of 
interest  regarding the MoQ so i will not push it.

> Anything less than  [mystical] is metaphysical, and even then
> logic can't cope with  them.  If  you insist you are saying
> something then you are  pushing back to a further stage which
> would have to be 'potentialism' or  something like that.

Ham: Why is the "metaphysical" less than the  "mystical"?   It's just another
approach to understanding  reality.

Mark: I take your point.
But it has been argued that metaphysics deals with definitions while  mystics 
like to avoid them.
In this sense, the monist Quality of ZMM is mystical and left alone.
But the DQ of the Metaphysics of Quality is part of a system. In this case,  
it's a bit like having the cake and eating it.
One may wish to see these two as complimentary?
My problem with potential is this: You can stuff all that is inconvenient  
and problematic into the category of the potential.
One version of could say: 'This electron is doing what it is doing now,  
because the initial potential teleological activated the Universe so that it  
would be doing what it is doing now.' When you consider the electron in question  
may be in the brain of Stephen Hawking it appears Stephen Hawking right down 
to  the atomic level was potentially 'there' before the Big Bang or whatever.
Which level of determinism do you subscribe to Ham?
 
> I'm saying the conceptual is defined, pure sensation, or
>  awareness is experienced as undefined.  God is fathomed
> very well  in most religions by the way Ham. Faith is largely
> a matter of clinging  to a set of sq patterns, not DQ.

Ham: I don't know anyone who can explain  the nature and dynamics of God.
We take it "on faith" not reason.  We  accept the fact that understanding the
Creator is beyond human  reasoning.  I am trying to posit a Primary Source
insofar as it can be  based on logic, reason and intuition.  I try to support
it any way I  can.
 
Mark: OK. Let's stay with philosophy.
You have posited a primary source.
The primary source is an essence with potential.
Does this mean that the activating of the potential follows a deterministic  
teleological path?

Ham said:
> There is nothing wrong with this  logic, provided that it
> refers to absolute  potentiality.

Mark:
> Fine. Then what you have is absolute  potentiality as a monism.
> And like your essence/nothing position, the  absolute potential
> is the same as saying absolute non-actualised. They  are logically
> the same. But if all is potential there can be no  actual.

Right.  Obviously some potentiality of Essence accounts for  the
actualization we call existence.  I maintain that it is the  actualization of
Difference, which amounts to God saying, "I deny."   This is a negation -- 
the negative potential of Essence.  What does  Essence negate?  Let's say, it
negates "otherness".  Then, for  Essence, there is no "other".  God is the
not-other.  And -- presto  -- we have Difference.
 
Mark: Right? You say, 'Right' and then immediately continue to tell me we  
have negative potential as well as absolute potential.
That's not a monism is it?
Absolute potential plus negative potential means dualism.
How many more potentialities does essence contain Ham?
Does it contain as many as there are?
If so, you've walked straight into deterministic teleology central.
Difference is like sand falling through an hour glass - potential becomes  
actual.
But any actuality may claim to have been potential all along, so  if i steal 
a car it was always potential that i should actually steal the  car.
 

Mark:
> But essence is a postulation and is therefore  finite.
> How can the finite define the infinite?  It  can't.

Ham: The finite doesn't have to define the infinite.  The  infinite defines 
(i.e.,
dilineates or differentiates) finitude, and it  becomes our existence.
 
Mark: You've just stated that essence is infinite.
Our postulations about it are finite but essence is infinite.
This means we now have essence = infinite absolute potential which  has 
negative potential.
You only have to tell me essence is also perfect for me to begin to suspect  
you are a Theologian Ham.
You've already suggested God exerts his Will, unless this was an  analogy?
Back to infinity.
Infinity isn't without a whole range of philosophical probing, so the more  
terms you associate with essence the more convoluted things become.
This is not turning out to be simple.


Mark:
> A primary cause presumably pushes creation  whereas
> migration may be seen as a dragging up or pulling.
> This  is Asymmetrical.  A cause generates that which follows
> as the  potential is actualised.  But migration does not imply
> a first  causal potentiality does it?  Migration, and this is very
>  Plotinian, is a coalescing of differentiation's reaching toward
> an  undefined end.  Perhaps the beginning was pure chaos
> in the  MoQ?

Ham: Essence, like God, has no beginning or end.  It is  uncreated and 
timeless.
Yes, this is an "assumption", a "given" that I can't  prove.  If you reject
the idea of a primary source I've lost you at the  git-go.
 
Mark: Like God?
Essence, as you delineate it is looking more like God by the sentence Ham,  
which i have to say worries me.
It worries me because we are drifting into the Theological tradition  and 
that gets pretty heavy.
But i may be worrying unnecessarily.
I'm not averse to contemplating the ins and outs of what may constitute a  
primary source, so i will stick with you as a fellow thinker.
As i hope to have convinced you Ham, i find your thought fascinating and  
stimulating and bloody irritating all at the same time!
But that's part of the fun.
I applaud you for being enough of a free thinker to state openly that  employ 
axioms which may not be amenable to prove.

Ham:
> Only  biological evolution has demonstrated the capacity
> to move toward a  higher state of organic complexity.
> This tells us nothing about the  inorganic universe, the comos
> as a whole, or man's role in   it.

Mark:
> Really Ham? Well, if you begin with Man that may very  well
> be one such conclusion.  But, 'man' is a concept and  concepts
> are part of the MoQ evolutionary history.

Ham:  Everything is a "concept" in the sense you are using it.  But so  what?
Things and values exist for us.  That's what's important.   The fact that
they are "evolutionary history" means nothing to me.   Evolution is a linear
notion of reality based on the passage of time.   Time and space are the mode
of human experience (intellectual  understanding).  They don't affect the
uncreated Source whose reality is  timeless (eternal) and immutable.  Some of
this evolutionary nonsense  was inspired by Prisig who, you remember, started
out as an  anthropologist.  Since anthropology is historically based, he
wasn't  able to shake off the evolutionary aspects of his
QualityLand universe.
 
Mark: This is a little unfair Ham and i wish to tell you why i feel this to  
be the case:
To begin at the end, Pirsig is not an anthropologist.
Pirsig examined the anthropological tradition to be sure, but he found it  
wanting.
Re: time and space. I agree that time and space are a mode of human  
experience.
I agree that that which shapes human experience is outside notions of time  
and space.
Re: Evolution. The MoQ regards evolution as a high quality intellectual  
pattern of value, and the MoQ employs evolution in its static aspect.
You're not challenging evolution are you Ham?
What is your position regarding evolution if i may ask?

Mark:
> The MoQ codification is Value. The good replaces  truth.
> Rationalist philosophies are nothing without truth; anything  said
> has to be true and able to be demonstrated as so.
> The only  way they can do this is to begin with axioms, and
> axioms are simply  unchallenged conventions.
> The MoQ says truth is a species of a higher  source: The good.
> The good isn't a convention because everyone knows  what is good.

Ham: More nonsense.  Everybody has his own  "good".  The islamic terrorist 
blows
himself up for his good.   Well, I guess "some things are better than
others."
 
Mark: Steady on Ham please?
The evil of the world is a lower form of good.
But the higher forms of good are morally superior Ham.
Yes, killing is a severe evil the MoQ does not entertain.
However, and i feel this is true, killing is a good from a very backward  
phase of evolutionary history.
At one time, at the time of the law of the jungle, killing was a  biological, 
and maybe a social good. After all, if one examines why people kill  in so 
many dreadful wars, it isn't for intellectual reasons is it? It comes down  to 
biology or social conflict, and these are forms of evil for the MoQ, which  
gives intellectual values moral priority.
The social conventions of those who kill in the name of social patterns  like 
religion must be challenged.

Mark:
> You challenge this in  your own essay don't you?
> You provide examples which state that the  objective universe
> depends on how we decide we like it to be.
> It  is us who generate our universe.
> Our universe is us.
> Your  runaway technology warning stresses that we should
> be in control not the  notion that out-there is going to tell us
> how things are.

Ham:  That's right.  Human beings are autonomous creatures with the freedom  
of
choice.
 
Mark: An area best left for another topic maybe?

> Mark:
>  Pirsig does not insist that pure empiricism is anything
> which can be  defined.  Why should experience be defined?
> This implies that  definitions are prior to experience, which
> is rather  Platonic.

Ham: I tend to be rather Platonic.  If empiricism is what  we directly 
experience,
why shouldn't we define it?  At least we should  know what it is.
 
Mark: I love Plato myself. I tend to be Platonic also.
Music and Plato hey?
We should be getting on pretty well?
Wait a moment. Adorno is a Platonist and i don't like him one bit.
Well, i like him one bit, but not lots of other bits.
Anyway, abstract definitions are within the intellectual realm of the MoQ  
and they are evolving in their own right toward DQ.
But intellectual experience is the latest realm of evolution, there are the  
social and biological also.
The point to remember is that pure empiricism is that of quality or value  
before the static patterns get a grip.
sq patterns are directly experienced and valued on aesthetic grounds within  
the aesthetic continuum.

Mark:
> The MoQ position suggests that  pure empirical experience
> is filtered by our own sq patterning. It can't  be helped because
> our stable finite selves are shaped by  evolution.  Part of that
> evolutionary process is a passing phase  which has it that
> there are subjects and objects. But intellect cannot  maintain
> this position in a fluid process ontology. You say i am  not
> interested in ontology Ham? Quite the reverse, my interest  is
> concerned with what a process - non-essence - value based
>  ontology would be like.

Ham: I suggest that we're going to be in this  "passive phase" for a very long
time -- as long as we are sentient human  beings anyway.
 
Mark: There may be hope, because creativity drops sq patterns and freedom  
floods in.
The trick is to maintain the best sq patterns while being open to DQ  change.
The MoQ is very careful to stress that everything new is not necessarily  the 
best.
The better patterns have to stand the test of time.
However, while sitting in that concert hall are at our most free when we  
merge with a Dynamic performance or activity.
The most Dynamic and free, and moral, are intellectual activities.
Music is, in my humble view, one of the most Dynamic activities humans  
participate in. Pure Joy.

Ham:
> Essentially we all begin with  experience, whether as scientists,
> philosophers, or ordinary  observers.

Mark:
> This is a bit rich Ham, because now you have  placed
> experience at the centre of your essence.
> I do not recall  you stating this before.
> You have just stated that experience is prior  to essence.

Ham: No I did not.  How do you arrive at that  conclusion?  I agree with 
Pirsig
that the Primary Source (Quality or  Essence) must precede existential
experience.  Those who don't believe  this are existentialists.
 
Mark: I beg your pardon Ham.
>From my empiricist tradition view point Quality is experienced and you have  
just equated essence with Quality.

Mark:
> By the way,  existentialists also begin with some
> preconceptions about pure  experience when they sit down
> and try to write about it. The MoQ does  say a few things
> about DQ which perhaps it should not, like, DQ is  always new.
> But the always new can be a disaster as well as a move  forward,
> so this may not be saying all that much?

Ham: The  Primary Source does not itself move or "push forward".  It is  
immutable.
Change and movement arise from Difference -- the primary  actualization of
Essence (see above).
 
Mark: But essence, the primary source, has, as part of its nature,  
potentiality of more than one differentiated type: If there is a negative  potential 
there must be that which gives negativity its meaning, i.e. the  contrast, 
positive. I'm having a problem understanding how the absolute,  immutable, 
potentiality can be reconciled with being a primary source?
It looks to me as if the primary source is in need of a primary  source?

Ham: May I suggest that we strive for brevity here?  Your  successive 
messages are
so lengthy, I'm finding it difficult to respond to  all your questions in a
single post.  One topic at a time would be  preferable.

Thanks, Mark.

Regards,
Ham
 
Mark: Well, i take what you say seriously and give your philosophy the  
attention it deserves.
If you ever publish your work in book form you may be asked to respond to  
more attentive people than me Ham?
Love,
Mark