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

[Ham Priday]

Hello Mark --

Where I find incomprehensibility in the MoQ, you claim an inability to
understand Essentialism.  This professed "misunderstanding" on both sides
may be an excuse to hold to a particular viewpoint, but it is an impediment
to a debate in which each protagonist expects his opponent to be open to a
new perspective.  (Notice how I phrased that so as not to put the blame on
either of us. ;-]

However, since you persist, I refuse to be the last man out.

> Aristotle invented all this stuff to try and explain why
> a seed grows into a tree.
> He said the tree was in the seed as a potential tree which
> in growing became an actualised tree.
> The final cause of the tree as teleological goal is in the
> seed, and the efficient cause is the planting of the seed.
> This is Physics - nature - phusis.
> Aristotle simply applied his system to the cosmos and poof!
> We have Metaphysics.
> Now, the seed becomes a metaphor for all being, and
> the same concepts which were invented for the seed
> are applied to God.

I didn't know that Aristotle (or metaphysics) was all that simple.  I'm more
familiar with the Platonists than with Aristotle whose chief 'claim to
fame', as I see it, was introducing categorization to experienced entities.

Mark:
> You are growing reality from abstract axioms like an
> Oak tree grows from a tree, and it's all conceptual.
> Highly imaginative, with allot of empirical observation
> of biological entities, but don't forget where Nicholas
> de Cusa belongs Ham?  Old Nic belongs with the egg heads
> who get off on inventing new ways of rationalising everything.

That's a strange accusation, Mark.  I can't really identify myself with it.
In fact, I don't discuss biogenesis at all in my thesis, and never once
mentioned a real or conceptual oak tree.  I don't even elaborate on
biological evolution.  All of this is more characteristic of Pirsig and the
MoQ than Essentialism.

Egghead indeed!  Old Nic was more of a mystic than you give him credit for.
He was also a master logician and scientist of his time.  I quote from the
St. Andrews University biography:

"Cusa was interested in geometry and logic.  He contributed to the study of
infinity, studying the infinitely large and the infinitely small.  He looked
at the circle as the limit of regular polygons and used it in his religious
teaching to show how one can approach truth but never reach it completely.
Cusa is best known as a philosopher who argued the incomplete nature of
man's knowledge of the universe.  He claimed that the search for truth was
equal to the task of squaring the circle.  In 1444 he became interested in
astronomy and purchased sixteen books on astronomy, a wooden celestial
globe, a copper celestial globe and various astronomical instruments
including an astrolabe.  His interest in astronomy certainly led him to
certain theories which were true and others which may still prove to be
true.  For example, he claimed that the Earth moved round the Sun, that the
stars were other suns, and that space was infinite.  He also believed that
the stars had other worlds orbiting them which were inhabited.  He got so
much right that perhaps this will also be found to be true one day!  Cusa
published improvements to the Alfonsine Tables which gave a practical method
to find the position of the Sun, Moon and planets using Ptolemy's model.
These tables had originally been compiled in 1272 with the support of King
Alfonso X of Castile.
Like many learned men of his time, Cusa also wrote on calendar reform.
Giordano Bruno is said to have written: 'If [Nicholas of Cusa] had not been
hindered by his priest's vestment, he would have even been greater than
Pythagoras!'"

<snip>

Ham:
> I like to say I've "borrowed a little" here and there.

Mark:
> A little? A whole Western tradition so ingrained in our
> culture as to be invisible.  Talk about dead metaphors.

I also like to think that I have the support of this vast and estimable
tradition.

<snip>

Mark:
> Maybe it's too close to your borrowed sources?
> I don't intend to be a swine, but why teach Ham when you
> can teach Aristotle?  There's so much Aristotle in your thesis
> i doubt if it could be taught until third year undergraduate
> anyway.  Still, your synthesis may be a valuable step forward
> in the tradition, I don't see why someone could not teach it.

I'm surprised that you would associate me with Aristotle's scientific
approach to knowledge.  Especially in view of my put-down of Aristotle in
this statement from the 'Reality is what we Experience' section of my
thesis:

"It was the Egyptian-born philosopher Plotinus [270-204 B.C.] who brought
Greek Idealism to the Roman Empire as Neo-Platonism, and with it the concept
that all existents emanate from a "subjective essence" and that the mind
plays an active role in shaping or ordering the objects of its perception,
rather than passively receiving the data of sensory experience.  With the
Empire's fall to the Goths in A.D. 476, Neo-Platonism gave way to the spread
of Christianity in the Western World, leaving Aristotle's empirical
definition of essence unchallenged to dominate philosophical thought
throughout the Middle Ages."

Referring to my philosophy, you asked me "Why is it good?"
I replied that I didn't understand what you meant by "good" in this context.

Mark:
> The Metaphysics of Quality aims to be provide a sure basis
> for answering these questions.  Aristotle tried to define the
> Good rationally. This is why people, like yourself find logic
> more real than Quality.
> (You admit value after logically establishing it.)

You're really funny, Mark.  Aristotle, like all the Greek philosophers after
Plato, tried to define goodness -- the 'summum bonum' -- by reason.
Inasmuch as I am a moral relativist who believes that all values are
subjective, I don't attempt to define the Good.  You'll find that Pirsig's
"sure basis" amounts to saying that it doesn't have to be defined.  "You'll
know it when you see it."  That's not an objective definition, and it isn't
very rational either.  In a valuistic philosophy like Essentialism, Goodness
must be the realization of the observer; otherwise it has no value.  The
whole point of my philosophy is that awareness is proprietary to the
individual.  By contuining to resist that concept, you miss what I submit is
the meaning of life.

<snip>

Mark:
> Pain is a biological pattern of value for sure
> according to the MoQ.

Pain is the proprioceptive awareness of physical trauma, for sure, according
to Essentialism and Scientism.

> <snip>

Ham:
> What do you mean by an "immediate  experience"?

Mark:
> By immediate experience i mean DQ and by deduce i
> mean the sq patterns of our entire Western philosophical
> tradition of Substance.

 <snip>

Ham:
> I wouldn't put "imaginary experiences" in the same
> category as pain.

 Mark:
> They are equally real. Pragmatically they may not be of
> equal value.  Imaginary toothache does not carry with it
> problems of infection.

Might it not carry with it "imaginary" problems of infection?

Ham:
> I still maintain that value is realized subjectively,
> which means the subject has to exist to experience it.

Mark:
> By subject you mean Mental Substance.
> Therefore, by Object you mean Material Substance.

No.  By subject I mean Awareness.
By object I mean Experiential Otherness.

Mark:
> Pain is a particular state of Material Substance which
> can be empirically verified, (burns) as can sound waves,
> 'Ouch!'  The experience of Pain is a particular state of
> Mental Substance and has to be taken on faith by scientists
> because it can't be empirically verified.

The physical organism is material substance.  We are aware of the
physiological status of our bodies proprioceptively, as pain, irritation,
comfort, hunger, thirst,
fatigue, malaise, cold, hot, pressure, etc.  Such sensations are not "mental
substance" or patterns of mental substance.  They are our awareness of
feelings.
By contuining to resist that concept, you miss what I submit is the
significance of proprietary awareness.

Mark:
> Therefore values can't be empirically verified.
> Therefore all values are subjective and there is no
> scientific method of establishing morality.

You've got that right.

> The MoQ replaces Substance with patterns value.
> Values are experienced in four ways: Hydrogen
> Molecules are patterns of Inorganic values, DNA are
> patterns of Biological values, Laws and Institutions
> are patterns of Social values and Science is patterns
> of Intellectual values.  This allows a hierarchy of
> moral codes to be distinguished on the basis of
> evolutionary priority which can be empirically
> verified to have been beneficial to life.

That's an intellectual construct that fits Pirsig's scheme but has no
relevance to scientific knowledge or any epistemological theory I'm aware
of.   Here is my analysis:
Essentialism acknowledges all Substance to be the appearance of Essence.
Value is the affinity of the individual self for Essence.  It is perceived
differentially as a range of favorable or unfavorable aspects of existence
[essents] relative to the subject.  Laws and Institutions are established by
individuals collectively to reflect the prevailing moral values of a
society.  There is no "evolutionary priority" involved either in man-made
institutions or in the perception of value.

<snip>

Mark:
> Love has Universal validity but science has nothing to
> say about it because Love is subjective isn't it?

Love is subjective.  Like Knowledge, Beauty, Freedom, and Justice, it is
also capable of being "standardized" in the collective sense.  But this is
done by the consensus of individuals -- usually by "specialists" in these
fields.

> Is the Law of Gravity more important than Love?

That is a rhetorical question.  My answer is that it would depend on whether
you were flying in an airplane or encountering romantic problems.

<snip>

Mark:
> The commonality of Love isn't practical Ham?

Not for me.  I think the pragmatist and the lover live in separate worlds.

<snip>

Mark:
> Define Quality for me please Ham?

Certainly.  Quality is the essential nature or distinguishing attribute of
an object or event.  The term may also be used to connote a degree of
excellence or workmanship in a fabricated item or 'object d'arte' offered
for sale.

Mark:
> Who taught Rembrandt, '...balance of features, color palette,
> rendering of detail, visual perspective, etc.?'
> Who taught Charles Dickens how to write so as to be regarded
> as one of the finest authors in the English language?

Probably the same people who taught hundreds of others whose names we don't
know because they lacked the talents of a Rembrandt or a Dickens.

<snip>

Ham:
> I find [the MoQ] epistemology incomprehensible.

Mark:
> Then do something about it.
> Stop thinking and experience Rembrandt.
> Stop analysing and experience beauty.
> Use your imagination.

I do.  I'm an admirer of Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Rodin, and Norman
Rockwell.  I enjoy the arts immensely without having to "think" about them.
Actually, it
was my appreciation for art and music that led me to explore aesthetics and
take an "analytical" approach to their value.  But if I didn't use my
imagination I would never have developed a Creation hypothesis.

Mark:
 <snip snip snippity snip>

I don't know about you, but my scissor-fingers are getting tired.

If you think we're making progress in this dialogue, you may wish to
continue.  As I'll be away until after the weekend, I may not get back to
you for a couple of days.

Cheers,
Ham