[MD] Does the MOQ invalidate Subjectivity?

[Ham Priday]

Hi Steve -- 

Gene is giving my thesis a careful reading, so I expect he'll have some
critical comments to make.  I always invite newcomers to the MoQ to explore
these two perspectives before becoming "indoctrinated" to either of them.
(It may be too late in your case.)

When I asked what you meant by "secondary inferences", you quoted Paul
Turner:

> "The [first thesis of the] MOQ says that Quality comes first,
> which produces ideas, which produce what we know as matter.
> The scientific community that has produced Complementarity
> almost invariably presumes that matter comes first and produces
> ideas.  However, as if to further the confusion, the [second thesis
> of the] MOQ says that the idea that matter comes first is a high
> quality idea!" [LILA'S CHILD, Annotation 67]
>
> So, Quality comes first which produces your idea that the subject
> comes first.

A metaphysical ontology should not have to be limited by the time precept,
so I don't like the chicken-and-egg paradigm of which came first.  Let's
stick to primary and secondary, which infers "source" and "derivative",
respectively.  My understanding of Complementarity as  offered by Neils Bohr
to resolve the photon issue in quantum physics is somewhat different than
yours.  The conclusion reached by nuclear physicists in the early 1930s was
that the observation of quantum phenomena affects the experimental data, not
that matter produces ideas.  That conclusion, as elaborated upon in Pirsig's
SODV paper, demonstrates the precipitous interaction of subject and object.

At the macro level of ordinary experience, there is no such enigma, because
we are observing objects within the finite range of human sensibility.  But
when we try to extend that range beyond organic sensibility, the results are
quite unpredictable.  Could this be because man's capacity to
"intellectualize" (i.e., construct) physical reality was never designed to
define microcosmic phenomena?   I believe there is some truth in this.

As for the assertion "that matter comes first is a high quality idea!", it
has no more meaning than what you try to make of it.

You Quote Paul again:

> The MOQ argues that experience must be the starting point of philosophy.
> Where did the subject come from? Did the subject exist before it had an
> experience? What was it doing before it had an experience? How does a
> subject know it was already there without experience?

Yes, these are all valid questions.  I agree that experience is the starting
point of philosophy.  But, unlike Pirsig, I do not attribute experience to
the objective world.  Like most philosophers, I begin with MY experience -- 
or, more precisely, with what I am (and what there is) WITHOUT my
experience.

>From this perspective, I am the subject.  In a temporal context, I came from
nothingness -- hence did not exist before I had an experience -- and will
eventually return to nothingness.  (Question #3 is therefore inapplicable.)
I would not know I was here without experience, since "here" and "there",
like "before" and after", are the dimensional attributes of objective
experience.

Now those answers may satisfy the existentialists and MoQers of the world.
But Paul left out at least one important question: WHY am I here?  And how
one answers it is significantly revealing.  I believe that life has meaning
and purpose, and that existence is derived from
an uncreated primary source.  Furthermore, I believe that the primary source
is the antithesis of nothingness.  So the question to be resolved goes
beyond the appearance of things that we call existence, or what their
"beingness" consists of.  The essential question is not, as Hegel asked,
"Why is there being instead of nothing?"  It's how can there be nothing?

[You can skip the next two paragraphs if you're not interested in my
answer.]

My explanation is that Essence constantly negates nothingness in order to
create an "other" which is the external perspective of Essence.  That other
must be absolutely separated from Essence.  (There are several valid reasons
for this, which I can go into at a later time.)  The core of my being in the
world is nothingness.  Essence is therefore totally "other" to me, but "I"
am not other to Essence because, as Cusa theorized, Essence is Not-other.
When I experience something, I penetrate Essence with my nothingness.  This
is a "secondary" negation, because the Essence that I experience is my
negated essential value.

Here's another original postulate which you may call Ham's Second Law of
Metaphysics.
Just as in the logic of morality two 'wrongs' don't make a 'right', in the
logic of metaphysics two "negatives' don't make a 'positive'; they make a
dichotomy -- specifically, the subjective awareness of objective beingness.
In other words, I reclaim my value in Essence by being-aware.  And the
"objects" of my experience represent my essential value divided into
discrete things by the nothingness of my differentiated being-aware.

> This all sounds like nonsense to me as it would for me to
> throw out MOQ jargon to someone unfamiliar with it. I don't
> think there is any arguing about whether Essentialism or the
> MOQ is correct or incorrect. You either find its metaphors
> useful or you don't.

True enough.

[Ham]:
> [Pirsig] would not have settled for "interacting subjects",
> either -- although the notion of electrons and
> amoeba "experiencing value" makes one wonder!

[Steve]:
> That's exactly what made me wonder. It makes perfect
> sense to think of cause and effect relationships as preferences.
> "A causes B" becomes "B values precondition A" and none
> of our formulas change.

I guess it "make sense" if one is compelled to accept the notion of a
"preferential" universe.
I prefer what you said before about the teleology of the universe as
"bringing things into balance" rather than the things themselves "becoming
better" by experiencing value.  But in either case, if things and their
progress are constructs of our experience (as Pirsig suggests), then
wouldn't it be natural that would bias things toward what we consider better
or more desirable?   As an anthropomorphist, that makes more sense to me.

[Ham]:
> I don't think we can dismiss the empirical truth of our reality:
> that it is the conscious awareness of objective beingness
> (i.e., differentiated things experienced in a space/time universe).

[Steve]:
> Your statement is empirical in that it is consistent with
> experience but there is nothing empirical about calling it
> the "truth of our reality."

Doesn't empirical mean consistent with experience?  Unless you have another
definition, my assertion is empirically true.

[Steve]:
> The MOQ says that the subjectivite/objective knowledge
> distinction is a high quality intellectual pattern.

That's nice to hear; but, again, this depends on who's making the judgment,
since everything in  existence is relative.  (That's Ham's Third Law of
Metaphysics.)

Best regards,
Ham