[MD] Essentialism and the MOQ

[PhaedrusWolff at carolina.rr.com]

> [Laird]
> Yes... at some points I pictured you as sublimely "finger pointing 
> at 
> the moon", talking to others and passively hoping that they'd 
> follow the 
> direction of your finger and gaze on the moon. I could picture you 
> eventually getting frustrated and impatient, saying "dude! look at 
> the 
> freakin' moon already!" That one got me laughing for quite a while!

Hi Laird,

You may not be too far off. I did have an ulterior motive when joining 
in on the conversation. When Ham was talking about consciousness, I 
thought maybe we could delve into what consciousness is, and what it 
means to be conscious, but it turned into a “Look at my Essence” 
conversation where consciousness comes from somewhere outside. 

The moon I might see would be where MOQ came from in my eyes, and that 
would be from self-reflection. 

> I try to be careful with reading statements and questions to see 
> if 
> there are SOM assumptions or conflicts between an SOM vs MOQ 
> interpretation. The "How we think" statements often have very 
> different 
> interpretations from an SOM vs MOQ perspective, so I try to dig to 
> the 
> underlying points of contention. It's hard work for us brought up 
> in 
> Western thought, but that's why we're here on MD.

Agreed.

> [Laird]
> In the Flying Spaghetti Monsters thread that Ham and I have been 
> going 
> back and forth on, he brought this up. To quote:
> 
> 
> [Ham, previously]:
> 
> > > The Pirsigians think I'm an SOMist, but I'm really not.
> > > If anything, I'm a "subjectivist".  We are the subjects
> > > who create our world of "objects" from our own subjectivity.
> > > If Essence is Absolute Sensibility, then proprietary awareness
> > > is differentiated (finite) sensibility.  The appearance of
> > > Finitude begins with Difference.
> >   
> I said to him, "I'd agree with "subjectivist" and understand how 
> it can 
> be seen as SOM-ish." A strict subjectivist by definition is 
> working 
> within SOM, emphasizing the subjects over the objects. But I'm not 
> convinced he's a die-hard subjectivist... He does transcend SOM 
> (not 
> always, but neither do we!), and he's discussing here on MD, so 
> that's 
> got to be worth something. :)

Chin) He has stopped talking to me twice now, and I don’t feel the 
necessity to protect others here who have proven over the years well 
capable of taking care of themselves, so I will just allow him to stay 
in his own little world, with his own empirical truths. 

> [Laird]
> I think the problem isn't so much with the use of any particular 
> word, 
> but understanding the meaning as a continuum of values rather than 
> a 
> specific value. It's sort of like a sensor in a piece of lab 
> equipment- 
> the sensor gives you the value from within the range of 
> possibilities, 
> but is not itself _the_ value.

Chin) I was half-way kidding about using Areté as opposed to Quality. 
Areté would have no meaning to modern man, but it seems some get tied 
up in the simple definitions of Quality, like workmanship, which of 
course misses the whole Essence (pun intended) of the word as Pirsig 
uses it. 

> [Laird]
> No worries. If you can get the Blue Haired Ladies to have some fun 
> with 
> Morality then we'll really be getting somewhere! :)

I’m afraid they had no fun, except probably feeling a little smug by 
running me out of the church. It seems coming up with your own 
interpretations of the Bible or as they called it “The Word” was not 
allowed. I liked the stories in the Bible, and felt they had their own 
little hidden meaning which might be defined as inner meaning for the 
reader. I guess it is best to keep the word ‘Analogy’ limited in its 
use to literature. ;o) 

This may get me in trouble here as well, as I saw ZMM as one man’s 
trip into self-reflection, and how it lead to enlightenment. Lila was 
just a continuance of this trip -- a trip into Quantum Physics, which 
requires some understanding past what he has offered, but is that not 
what DQ is all about? 

A limited explanation of where Quality might mean could be found in 
Lila;
“The only difference between causation and the value is that the 
word "cause" implies absolute certainty whereas the implied meaning 
of "value" is one of preference. In classical science it was supposed 
that the world always works in terms of absolute certainty and 
that "cause" is the more appropriate word to describe it. But in 
modern quantum physics all that is changed. Particles "prefer" to do 
what they do. An individual particle is not absolutely committed to 
one predictable behavior. What appears to be an absolute cause is just 
a very consistent pattern of preferences.” 

I did delve a little deeper in the world of Quantum Physics, and feel 
it helped me some to understand what Pirsig was talking about, and 
quite possibly a better understanding of the world around us and our 
relationship to it and each other. 

I’ll shut up now, as I feel I have gone well out on a limb, but would 
be willing and appreciative of any more discussion of any of this. 
Don’t pull any punches as I do not feel I am ego-centric or 
emotionally unstable. ;o) 

Chin