[MD] Ham on Esthesia

[Ham Priday]

Hi Mark  -- 

Your first message appeared in tiny type; I'm trying to enlarge it by applying 14-pt. "rich text" which is verboten for the MD posts.  So, I don't know if you will receive this.  (If not, I'll have to resend it in your pinprick format.)

> Your responses are becoming terse Ham. It worries me 
> when this happens for it is often a prelude to goodbye.

I didn't intend to "worry you" by admitting that I didn't understand your statement.  I just saw no point in trying to address it.

> 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 can appreciate what you're trying to do, but still don't see the distinction.  Did I like the piece before hearing this new interpretation?  If so, in your terms, it had "high Quality".  A fresh interpretation is more interesting, more pleasing aesthetically, prehaps giving me a "higher Quality" experience.  Where is the DQ/sq split?  Is it actuated by the violinist or myself?  How would I know it when I heard it?  (I guess I'm just in an sq plateau.)  I do like some compositions "better than others" though.  I am a romanticist and enjoy R. Strauss, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Schuman, Mendlessohn, Rachmaninoff, etc., more than the Baroque and contemporary composers.

> 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.

How can I respond to assertions based on official MoQ doxology without offending you?   By replying that I appreciate the "magnitude" of what this is saying but not the sense of it?   

> 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?

First off, I do not consider myself an arrangement of patterns.  My biological organism is composed of cellular components whose functions are related to their molecular structure. The nerve tissues responsible for integrating my thoughts and feelings may be "patterned" throughout my cerebro-nervous system, but they are no more "me" than my big toe or wisdom tooth.

In short, I am not fashioned according to "recent social and intellectual patterns", whatever that is supposed to mean.  My genetic patterns date back to pre-historic time and my account for the bald spot on the back of my head and, possibly, for some of my current impatience with this kind of dialogue.  Otherwise, I am a unique individual with a modicum of learning ability and a will of my own, just as I presume you are.

> 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.

A wise decision.  If I'm about to "merge in the moment of Dynamic Quality", I'd prefer to prepare for it in advance.

> 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?

Not sure I subscribe to either.  Probably I'm closer to the teleological view -- for the dynamics of inanimate objects, at least.  But then, according to your Master, experience creates these things, doesn't it?  So the dynamics and organization of a physical universe come from you as much as from any external reality.

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?

"Deterministic and "teleological" are at cross purposes here, Mark.  The former has to do with probability and the laws of cause and effect, the latter with a cosmic design.  I opt for the latter. 

[snip]

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.

Have you reviewed Cusa's theory of absolute potentiality and actualization?  According to the law of Contradictory Identity, every existent is definable both positively (in terms of what it is) and negatively (in terms of what it is not).  Cusa theorized that Possibility and Actuality are co-dependent in existence but coincide in the non-contradictory Source, the "positive" reality of which is One and its "negative" manifestation divided.  (There is more to my ontology, but we can discuss that at another time.) 

Mark:
> That's not a monism is it?
> Absolute potential plus negative potential means dualism.
> How many more potentialities does essence contain Ham?

Reality is manifested as a dualism from the finite perspective of human intellection.  Essentially, it is absolute and immutable, which I suppose qualifies as a "monism". 

Mark:
> You've just stated that essence is infinite.
> Our postulations about it are finite but essence is infinite.

Is there a law against hypothesizing an Infinite?  Let's call it Absolute, then.  Actually, I prefer that term.

> This is not turning out to be simple.

I didn't promise you "simplicity".  But you are fighting me every step of the way.  I'd like to see you argue Pirsig's case.  He'd never have been able to get away with his Quality theory.

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?  

No.  Nor does Pirsig's MoQ.  As I said before, Essence, like God, has no beginning or end.  It is  uncreated and timeless.
 
Mark: 
> Like God?

Like our notion of the Creator, whether you acknowledge this as God, Megog, or the primary cause.

Mark:  
Essence, as you delineate it is looking more like God by the sentence Ham,  
which i have to say worries me.

I seem to be the cause of much of your worry.  I don't know what worries you about a common reference to God, unless you feel you are betraying Pirsig by acknowledging a transcendent source.  I never claimed to be an atheist, Mark.

Mark:
> 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.

Good.  I have generally tried to avoid theological tradition, although I've borrowed idea from visionaries like Eckhart and the Neoplatonists who were of course from that tradition.

> 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 proof.

As can also be said for Prsig's philosophy.  But I'm pleased you continue to find Essentialism fascinating.  With any luck I may yet convince you of its rationality.

Regards, 
Ham