[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Ham Priday]

Hi Steve (Platt mentioned) --

> Actually, I wasn't being genuine. I was kind of being
> a jerk. I get a little anoyed wuth you. My impression
> is that you don't really want to understand Pirsig's
> MOQ, which is fine, but then I wonder what you are
> doing participating in this discussion group.

Then, your annoyance with me is no match for my annoyance with the drift of
this discussion.

I joined this forum three years ago at the suggestion of Mr. Pirsig, who
found my thesis "remarkably similar to the MoQ."  I wanted to find out what
the differences were and, yes, my purpose was also self-serving.  I figured
it was a rare opportunity to introduce my philosophy of Essence to a group
of like-minded people.  Sadly, I've since learned that the MoQ is
fundamentally opposed to the core idea of Essentialism, which is that the
experienced world begins and ends with the individual.

It has become apparent to me that the MD participants in general have
contempt for the individual and the faculties of cognizant awareness that
are unique to the individual.

> The MOQ does not say that all the faculties of an
> individual are intellect.  The intellectual level
> represents the set of all patterns of thought.
> [SNIP]
> It says [Ham's] awareness is Quality and goes on
> to divide experience into static and dynamic
> components and defining "Ham" as a product of
> awareness.

You want to sweep Ham Priday under the rug, along with all other
individuals, by claiming we are only "products of biological and social
evolution", that we as individuals have no original ideas, make no
individual contributions, and that mankind advances only through the
collective intellect (presumably a level of Quality).  If this is true, then
man himself has no freedom; he is only a "pattern of behavior" operating
under the control of a universal esthesis (Intellect?)whose ideas he borrows
to fulfill its preordained evolution towards "betterness".  As Sartre once
said: "man is 'unnecessary' inasmuch as the world exists just as well
without him."

What does it avail the individual to live this life, equipped with the
intelligence and sensibility to realize its value, if his participation in
existence is nothing more than a patterned offshoot of biological processes?

What you folks propose is a world in which there is no proprietary
awareness, a relational universe in which entities and organisms evolve and
adapt systemically in Darwinian fashion by the genetic transfer of
"intelligence".  Automated to its socio-biological behavior patterns, man
acquires sufficient Intellect to organize a community of like organisms to
plan, build, and maintain a techno-social system, including an information
base containing the laws and principles which it has "detected" about its
world.  Except that it has no conscious awareness of itself or the
significance of its achievement.

What would be the value of such a system?  What possible meaning or purpose
would this automatic evolution toward "betterness" or "organic complexity"
serve?   How could such a sophisticated order of beingness even be
discerned, let alone valued, in the absence of individual awareness?

Human existence by such a description is pointless.  If there is no freedom
or value for the individual, you and I have about as much cosmic
significance as the roots of the Sassafras tree in my backyard.  Can you now
see why I'm annoyed and Platt is frustrated by this anti-individualistic
ideology?  Both of us have been arguing for recognition that the individual
is the locus of physical existence.  To deny man this status is to deny that
life holds any meaning for the subject of experiential awareness.

You say:
> In the MOQ there is no such thing as an object without
> awareness. To say that everything is Quality is to say
> that everything is awareness.

To say that everything is awareness is an absurdity.  How can you make such
an assertion?

I don't know about Platt, but I've lost hope that the metaphysical
significance of proprietary awareness will ever be realized by those of you
who hold to the present doctrine.

Regards,
Ham