[MD] Primer

[Squonkonguitar at aol.com]

Quoting gav <gav_gc at yahoo.com.au>:

> okay so here's my  architectural idea:
> **3 parts:**
> 
> 1. quality is the  fundamental 'stuff' of the universe.
> 
>  the highest most  correct level. monistic, mystical.
> quality =immediate pre-intellectual  experience
> experience produces subjects and objects; rather than
>  subjects experiencing objects.

Platt: Quality is not a level.
 
Mark: 6-10-06: Hello Gav and Platt.
Platt is correct here Gav, Quality is not a level in the Metaphysics of  
Quality.
Any MoQ primer IMHO has to remain within the language of the MoQ itself:  The 
main terms are DQ and sq.
You have begun with the Quality of ZMM, and the least said about this the  
better:
'Mystics will tell you that once you've
opened the door to metaphysics  you can say good bye to any genuine
understanding of reality.  Thought  is not a path to reality.  It sets
obstacles in that path because when  you try to use thought to approach
something that is prior to thought your  thinking does not carry you toward
that something.  It carries you away  from it.  To define something is to
subordinate it to a tangle of  intellectual relationships.  And when you do
that you destroy real  understanding.
The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phædrus had  called
"Quality" in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece.   Quality
doesn't have to be defined.  You understand it without  definition, ahead of
definition.  Quality is a direct experience  independent of and prior to
intellectual abstractions.
Quality is  indivisible, undefinable and unknowable in the sense that there
is a knower  and a known, but a metaphysics can be none of these things.   A
metaphysics must be divisible, definable and knowable, or there isn't  any
metaphysics.  Since a metaphysics is essentially a kind of  dialectical
definition and since Quality is essentially outside definition,  this means
that a "Metaphysics of Quality" is essentially a contradiction in  terms, a
logical absurdity.' (Lila. ch. 5)
Rather than introduce notions of levels, it may be sufficient to refer to  
Quality as a mystic monism.

> 2. Quality's first division: DQ/sq: the absolute and
> the  relative; the unmanifest and the manifest.

Platt: There are no  absolutes.
 
Mark: 6-10-06: I find myself half agreeing with Platt.
Personally, i would reserve absolute for Quality.
DQ/sq is the language of the MoQ, and Quality is damaged in the process,  but 
that's life. Fair enough.
I've read Lila and i can't find a quote which supports the suggestion that  
DQ is absolute.
I've read Lila and i can't find a quote which supports the suggestion that  
DQ is the unmanifest.
 
I've read Lila and i can't find a quote which supports the suggestion that  
sq is the manifest.
I'm not sure a MoQ Primer should state these things; i think it is  
confusing: experience is of DQ and sq.


Gav:
> the next highest level. less correct or  fundamental
> than 1. but more correct than 3.
> the code of art.  the interdependence of the dynamic
> and the static. the reason why  quality means different
> things to different people.

Platt:  Quality is neither correct nor incorrect.
 
Mark: 6-10-06: Platt's statement must be so, as Quality is undefined:  
correctness is more aligned with static intellectual quality; to be correct  is to 
be true, and truth requires static definitions.
I applaud your attempting to integrating ZMM (Quality) and Lila (DQ/sq),  but 
it must be done sensitively.
I think you've placed grace under pressure.
 
> 3. Static Quality divided into intellectual, social,
>  biological, inorganic static patterns.
> 
> the evolutionary  relationship between the discrete
> levels and the moral codes and  conflicts their
> interplay produces.
 
Mark: 6-10-06: This is fine, but i feel it must be stressed that DQ is at  
play at all levels all the time.
Both sq and DQ are required for life.

Gav:
> these are the three different levels of the MOQ as  far
> as i can tell; i believe a lot of our confusion comes
> from  mixing these levels up. for instance the primary
> level - quality =  pre-intellectual undivided exp - is
> still causing trouble becasue folk  don't get it or
> don't get that it IS primary.
 
Mark: 6-10-06: I disagree Gav. First of all, Quality is not a level within  
the MoQ.
Strictly speaking, anyone who wishes to remain mystic rejects the  MoQ.
I feel i have identified for myself a number of apparently well respected  
and supported members of this forum who behave as if this is the case.
They all, without exception, are dominated by social patterns of value,  
because in rejecting the intellectual pattern of the MoQ, the social becomes  
their primary structure. It's dangerous, and it blocks the progress of the  MoQ.
The Liverpool 2005 conference is a prime example.

Platt: You've  named five, not three levels. 
Off to a shaky start. :-)
 
Mark: 6-10-06: Platt may be right.
I hope i've gone a little further than Platt in my criticisms of your  
architectural idea Gav? My aim is to contribute positively to your  project.
Love,
Mark