[MD] Where have all the values gone?

[Ham Priday]

 Hi David --

[DM, previously]:
> Creation hypothesis:
> Suffice it to say that the two primary essents
> are "nothing" and "not-nothing".  Essentially, "not-nothing" is
> experiential "beingness" (the not-nothing (or thing/object) of
> awareness), so that "nothing" is the "negate" or emptiness of
> awareness.  Both of these essents are contingencies of Value;
> that is, they exist by virtue of the Value of Nothing.

[Ham, previously]:
> "Not-nothing" equates to "something" which I call Essence.
> (I assume Pirsig would call it Quality.)  So how does
> "not-nothing" improve the proposition?

[DM]:
> Well, MOQ starts with Nothing rather than essence -
> so that's a clear difference and saves having to explain
> where this essence comes from.  As they are both sources
> they are going to end up looking pretty similar.

You name Nothing as the source of everything.  Does that not defy the most
fundamental  logical principle: Nothing can come from nothing?   Your
argument that this solution "saves having to explain where this essence came
from" is equally unfounded.  Only those who are tied to a space/time reality
(SOM) are limited in this way.  If you really believed in DQ as the
undivided source of existential reality, you would not have made either of
these assertions.
Surely MoQ's author did not intend that Quality or Value should be equated
with nothingness.

Insistence on an infinite regression of causes is the argument of someone
incapable of freeing himself from the finite notion that creation is
sequential and that everything must have a prior cause.  Even your
"Nothing", as a created condition or state of existence, alludes to a prior
cause.  But the uncreated source is timeless and does not need a creator.

[Ham, previously]:
> Also, if you define the negate as "emptiness of awareness", you not only
> defeat its purpose but deny its place in existence.  The negate IS
> awareness.  I know you want badly to assign it to not-nothing or Quality;
> but that doesn't make metaphysical sense.

[DM]:
> No to nothing which is the clearing in which qualities appear.

I still say this is metaphysically unsound.  You need more than a "clearing"
for a thing to appear.  You need an initiator or creator.  And, while this
initiating source, like your awareness, cannot be defined as a "thing", it
cannot not be.  That is, it can't be nothingness.

[Ham, previously]:
>  If Quality is your 'not-nothing' it must be DQ,

[DM]:
> No, not-nothing is really about SQ. Nothing implies DQ by its
> ability to give way and allow SQ to appear.

So, according to Morey on Pirsig, DQ which is nothing gives way to SQ which
is something.
Nothingness does not have the power to create.  Again, your proposition is
metaphysically untenable by virtue of creatio ex nihilo.

[Ham, previously]:
>  I have to equate awareness with the particulars of
>  experience, which of course I'm not willing to do.

[DM]: Say that again?

Well, in making my hypothesis "fit" the MoQ, as you understand it, you
stated that "not-nothing is experiential "beingness" (the thing/object of
awareness), so that "nothing" is the emptiness of awareness."   Since DQ is
your nothing, SQ must account for the "substantive something" of experience,
and I assume you do not equate it with DQ.  That forces me to conclude that
awareness is a "substantive something", which I don't believe it is.  As I
said previously:
> Proprietary awareness is outside the realm of the relational world
> it experiences and is a primary role player in existence.

[DM]:
> Nothingness, heaving with potential is not in space-time, but we
> have an undeniable connection to it as human beings.

I find "Nothingness heaving with potential" a hilarious mixed metaphor.
(Seinfeld could use an expression like that in one of his opening
monologues!)

[DM]:
> I think you misunderstand both SOM and MOQ. In MOQ DQ is the
> source that has no-thingness about it. ...

"No-thing" does not connote nothingness.  Heidegger, one of several Western
philosophers to use this term, said: "A person is not a Thing, not a
substance, not an object, but a subject, and as such 'No-Thing' material or
immaterial.  If a person can be real as a no-thing within a universe of
things, then certainly the essential source can be conceived as the absolute
no-thing in itself.  Metaphysical "no-thingness" does not imply nothingness
but, rather, the absence of particular things.  I think Mr. Pirsig would
object to having his Quality defined as nothingness.  (In my philosophy,
Essence is the antithesis of nothingness.)

> In SOM the subject still gets tied up with thingness. But in MOQ
> DQ is something more primordial than human being.
> But equally DQ is essential for a human being to be alive and active
> and evolving.  I use 'essential' ironically as the claim is that
> Nothing is essential!

I'm glad you typed an exclamation point on that claim.  Your ironies never
cease to amaze me!

[Ham, previously]:
> What WOULD be a more workable ontology for the MoQ is a concept of
> undifferentiated Quality as the absolute source -- the Essence of Reality.

[DM]:
> That's DQ I would say. But I would resist calling it essential
> because what essence could you ascribe to it? Better to say
> Nothing. Good connect to eastern thought too.

I think you misunderstand Eastern philosophy.  According to the Buddhistic
Studies website, "Mahayana Buddhism teaches that all sentient beings have
Buddha Nature/Essence."  Does this imply "nothingness" to you?   Pirsig
wrote that Quality was the primary empirical reality.  On what basis do you
conclude that the essence of reality is nothingness?

[DM]:
> For me, the purpose of the cosmos is the exploration of awareness.
> Is it there before the journey. Yes and no. If we eventually return home
> we will have changed yet still able to recognise where we came from?

I submit that you are using your awareness to discover and explore Value in
your life-experience.  And that should suggest to you that the Value you
experience has an essential source.  If you can honestly say that the source
of Value is nothingness, then you must be an irreconcilable nihilist.

Still essentially yours,
Ham