[MD] Ham thinks the MOQ is a form of phenomenology

[Ham Priday]

Mark --


> Strictly speaking, you can't give it a name, for to do so
> is to introduce concepts where concepts are inadequate.
> This is the equivalent of Plotinus the mystic and Pirsig
> the mystic. Both may be legitimately regarded as mystics.
> Lila is a little different, because this is a metaphysics, and
> metaphysics needs definitions.

I'll allow that definitive concepts are inadequate.  The One is beyond
description.  As for "giving it a name", we are already referring to it is
the One, and I see no reason why "Source" or "Essence" is logically invalid,
inasmuch as neither is a "descriptive" term.

> Pirsig has stated that he feels Plotinus is the closest
> western philosopher to his own ideas.

So I've heard.  Indeed, I am also metaphysically close to Plotinus.  It is
the logic of Nicholas of Cusa, however, that gives us a handle with which to
deal with this concept.  Have you read the Creation section of my on-line
thesis?

> The MoQ claims to be more empirical than science:
> 'Once this primary relationship is cleared up an awful lot
> of mysteries get solved.  The reason values seem so
> woolly-headed to empiricists is that empiricists keep trying
> to assign them to subjects or objects.  You can't do it. ...

Pirsig also claims, by use of the "hot stove" example, that Quality is
empirical because it is directly experienced by the subject.  But ALL
experience is subjective, whether it is the sensation produced by one's own
organism or the acquiring of statistical information from an experiment.
Where Science draws the line is with the term "empirical proof" which
carries the connotation "universal".  Thus, the scientist would have to
accept the subject's feeling of pain on faith or trust.  The victim's
expressed complaint is factual, as is any tissue damage caused by contact
with the stove.  These are facts because they can be validated empirically.
The pain itself cannot be validated objectively because it is experienced
subjectively.  What this example actually demonstrates is that value is
subjective.

> You get all mixed up because values don't belong to
> either group.  They are a separate category all their own.
> What the Metaphysics of Quality would do is take this
> separate category, Quality, and show how it contains
> within itself both subjects and objects. The Metaphysics
> of Quality would show how things become enormously
> more coherent-fabulously more coherent-when you start
> with an assumption that Quality is the primary empirical
> reality of the world. . . .' (Lila p. ch. 5)

The feeling of pain does not contain within itself the object "hot stove".
Possibly the visual and tactile values are convertible to this object -- 
indirectly, by the intellect.  But this is not direct experience of an
object; it is an intellectualized image derived from these values.

<snip>

> Ham:
> I  recently heard an astrophysicist discussing the Big Bang theory.
> He noted that the theory stipulates that the boundary of space at
> that time was limited to approximately the size of a football... That
> doesn't sound like an infinite universe to me.

Mark:
> Nor me! Look, i'm English, and after the last World Cup debacle, i
> don't wish to hear about footballs thank you very much!  ;-)

Sorry.  Make that "rugby ball".

> <snip>
>
> Ham: Theoretically (metaphysically?) they are at opposite ends of the
> extremes of
> finite numerality.  But they are only numerical expressions  of magnitude.
> Neither Zero nor Infinity in itself is substantive or  essential.  That
is,
> they do not define a creator or primary  source.
>
> Mark: I will take your word for it. As i said, maths is not my area, and i
> don't know anything about the philosophy of maths.

> <snip>

Ham:
> I have no quarrel with that concept.  In fact, it is my own view.
> But why does he only "suggest" it; why does he avoid naming it
> the Source?

 Mark:
> It's the Mystic/Metaphysics thing.
> From a mystical view words screw things up.
> Metaphysics needs something to say.
> That's why Quality and DQ are not quite the same thing -
> Quality is a mystical monism and DQ is a metaphysical monism.
> Pirsig wrote two books and they present two views of Quality.
> My personal interest here and elsewhere is in the metaphysics,
> which allows you and i to discuss matters.
> I leave the mystical stuff out of it cos it is better that way.
>
> Mark:
> > Then values are subjective for you Ham.
>
> Ham:  Yes, exactly!

Mark:
> This appears to be a source of friction in our conversation,
> but let's recognise it and be friends?

I wouldn't have it any other way.

> After all, my conversations with you have pushed me toward
> a new idea which i had only this morning and discussed with
> a friend, David Boyce (who attended the first MoQ conference
> last year), this afternoon. The idea concerns the problem of
> getting from the One to the many.

I'll be anxiously awaiting it.  But since you are about to introduce your
own concept, be prepared to taken on Nicholas of Cusa.  I've structured my
thesis of differentiation on Cusan logic.  In case you haven't read my
on-line thesis, here's a primer on Cusa's 'First Principle':

Nicholas of Cusa [1401-1464] developed a theory based on the "not-other" as
a symbolic connotation for God.  Cusa argues that, although God is
indefinable, it can be stated that the world is not God but is not anything
other than God.  In Nicholas' own words: "The first principle cannot be
other either than an other or than nothing and likewise is not opposed to
anything."  God is "not other", he asserts, because God is not other than
any [particular] other, even though "not-other" and "other" [once derived]
are opposed.  But no other can be opposed to God from whom it is derived.

Professor Clyde Miller of Stony Brook University's Philosophy Department has
formalized Cusa's theory as a logical proposition: "For any given non-divine
X, X is not other than X, and X is other than not X.  What is unique about
the divine not other is precisely that it is not other than either X or not
X ('cannot be other than'-'is not opposed to anything').  The transcendent
not-other thus undercuts both the principles of non-contradiction and of the
excluded middle."

Cusa's theory is the concept of "actualized possibility", or what he called
'possest', a combination of the Latin 'posse', [able, possible] and 'esse',
[being, actualization].  Cusa reasoned that if actuality did not exist, then
nothing could actually be.  But things are; therefore actuality exists.
Possibility and actuality are co-dependent in existence but coincide in the
non-contradictory Source-ultimate reality in which opposites like
'positive/negative' and 'subject/object' are equivalent.  If the possibility
of contradictory otherness is always present in Essence and becomes
actualized when there is an awareness to experience it, then it this
actualization that we call existence.

> Thank you Ham for stimulating me into thought.
> If you had not done this i may not have put the icing
> on my little idea regarding the One and the many.
> When i feel more sure of what it is i think i want to say,
> i'll place it out there for others to ponder.

It has been my pleasure.  Sometimes an answer to the most complex problem
can be a "little idea".  I totally support you efforts here, Mark.
Unfortunately, I also know what you may face from the others for venturing
where the angels of Qualityland fear to tread!

Thanks and best wishes,
Ham