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

[Squonkonguitar at aol.com]

Hello Mark --

Where I find incomprehensibility in the MoQ, you claim  an inability to
understand Essentialism.
 
Mark: Hello Ham.
Excuse me please, but i rather feel i do understand your  essentialism.
My main critisicm is that, prior to Human experience you postulate a realm  
we do not have access to.
The realm in question is described in your thesis in some detail using the  
language of Aristotle and related thinkers.
In short, this realm is conceptual; it is contructed from rational  axioms.
But, many of these axioms have an evolutionary history within the Western  
philosophical tradition and are derived from Aristotle's systematisation of  
logical cuases and categories whether you like it, recognise it, agree with  it 
or not.
I do understand this, and it is precicely how this came about which is  
discussed in ZMM:
'Phædrus reads further and further into pre-Socratic Greek thought to find  
out, and eventually comes to the view that Plato’s hatred of the rhetoricians  
was part of a much larger struggle in which the reality of the Good, 
represented  by the Sophists, and the reality of the True, represented by the 
dialecticians,  were engaged in a huge struggle for the future mind of man. Truth won, 
the Good  lost, and that is why today we have so little difficulty accepting 
the reality  of truth and so much difficulty accepting the reality of Quality, 
even though  there is no more agreement in one area than in the other.' (ZMM. 
ch. 29.)
I am seriously begining to doubt if you have read ZMM at all Ham?

<snip>

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

Mark: I'm not going to flog a dead Horse.
'This is why Plato finds it necessary to separate, for example, "horseness"  
from "horse" and say that horseness is real and fixed and true and unmoving,  
while the horse is a mere, unimportant, transitory phenomenon. Horseness is 
pure  Idea. The horse that one sees is a collection of changing Appearances, a 
horse  that can flux and move around all it wants to and even die on the spot 
without  disturbing horseness, which is the Immortal Principle and can go on 
forever in  the path of the Gods of old.' (ZMM. ibid)

<snip>

Ham: 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: In the context of the on-line forum you are contributing to,  
Aristotle's 'chief claim to fame' is a bit more than this.
'Rhetoric is an art, Aristotle began, because it can be reduced to a  
rational system of order.
That just left Phædrus aghast. Stopped. He’d been  prepared to decode 
messages of great subtlety, systems of great complexity in  order to understand the 
deeper inner meaning of Aristotle, claimed by many to be  the greatest 
philosopher of all time. And then to get hit, right off, straight  in the face, with 
an asshole statement like that! It really shook him.' (ZMM.  ibid)

Remember the description of the motorcycle given way back in South  Dakota? 
The one which carefully enumerated all the motorcycle parts and  functions? 
Recognize the similarity? Here, Phædrus was convinced, was the  originator of 
that style of discourse. For page after page Aristotle went on  like this. Like 
some third-rate technical instructor, naming everything, showing  the 
relationships among the things named, cleverly inventing an occasional new  
relationship among the things named, and then waiting for the bell so he can get  on to 
repeat the lecture for the next class.
Between the lines Phædrus read  no doubts, no sense of awe, only the eternal 
smugness of the professional  academician. Did Aristotle really think his 
students would be better  rhetoricians for having learned all these endless names 
and relationships? And  if not, did he really think he was teaching rhetoric? 
Phædrus thought that he  really did. There was nothing in his style to 
indicate that Aristotle was ever  one to doubt Aristotle. Phædrus saw Aristotle as 
tremendously satisfied with  this neat little stunt of naming and classifying 
everything. His world began and  ended with this stunt. The reason why, if he 
were not more than two thousand  years dead, he would have gladly rubbed him out 
is that he saw him as a  prototype for the many millions of self-satisfied 
and truly ignorant teachers  throughout history who have smugly and callously 
killed the creative spirit of  their students with this dumb ritual of analysis, 
this blind, rote, eternal  naming of things. Walk into any of a hundred 
thousand classrooms today and hear  the teachers divide and subdivide and 
interrelate and establish "principles" and  study "methods" and what you will hear is 
the ghost of Aristotle speaking down  through the centuries...the desiccating 
lifeless voice of dualistic reason.  (ZMM. ibid)

<snip> 

Ham: That's a strange accusation, Mark.  I can't really identify  myself with 
it.
 
Mark: I know what i do identify you with: 'There was nothing in his style  to 
indicate that Aristotle was ever one to doubt Aristotle. Phædrus saw  
Aristotle as tremendously satisfied with this neat little stunt of naming and  
classifying everything. His world began and ended with this stunt.'

Ham: 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.
 
Mark: If you read Aristotle's Nicomacean ethics you may find many things  
recognisable?

<snip>

Ham: I also like to think that I have  the support of this vast and estimable 
tradition.
 
Mark: No doubt about it.
'For page after page Aristotle went on like this. Like some third-rate  
technical instructor, naming everything, showing the relationships among the  
things named, cleverly inventing an occasional new relationship among the things  
named, and then waiting for the bell so he can get on to repeat the lecture for 
 the next class.'

<snip>

Ham: 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."
 
Mark: This is too simplistic. Plotinus synthesised Aristotle and Plato.  
Plotinus owes an enormous debt to both Plato and Aristotle.
But this is not the point. The point is, as with Plato, Plotinus places,  
'The Good' at the apex of his philosophy.
For, 'The Good' read, Quality.
Are you begining to get the picture yet Ham?

Ham: 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.)

Ham: You're really funny, Mark.
 
Mark: Is that right? But now you go on to demonstrate what i have just  said:
 
Ham: Aristotle, like all the Greek philosophers after
Plato, tried to  define goodness -- the 'summum bonum' -- by reason.
 
Mark: Plotinus places, 'The Good' at the apex of his philosophy. For, 'The  
Good' read, Quality.  
Or are you going wriggle out of this by pointing out that Plotinus is  
Egyptian?

 
Ham: Inasmuch as I am a moral relativist who believes that all values  are
subjective, I don't attempt to define the Good.
 
Mark: Plotinus may not agree with you? For Plotinus, The Good, (read  
Quality) is the source of everything.
 
Ham: You'll find that Pirsig's
"sure basis" amounts to saying that it  doesn't have to be defined.
 
Mark: Like Plotinus.
 
Ham: "You'll
know it when you see it."  That's not an objective  definition, and it isn't
very rational either.
 
Mark: Ham: 'Inasmuch as I am a moral relativist who believes that all  values 
are subjective, I don't attempt to define the Good.'
 
Ham: In a valuistic philosophy like Essentialism, Goodness
must be the  realization of the observer; otherwise it has no value.
 
Mark: Valuistic philosophy like essentialism? That's a laugh.
Realised by the observer?
I'm tempted to play you at your own purile game of being literal in  the name 
of whit and ask if this means the evening observer or the Weekend  observer?
The Good is the Prime essence according to Plotinus if you bothered to  
actually read the Enneads.
 
Ham: The
whole point of my philosophy is that awareness is proprietary  to the
individual.
 
Mark: If this is so then why don't you call your philosophy, 'Proprietary  
awareness'?
If the physiological status of our bodies is proprioceptive  Proprietary 
awareness then why don't you call your philosophy, 'Proprioceptive  Proprietary 
awareness'?
There seems to be a heavy emphasis on ownership here.
I mean, (drum roll) I can't have a stake in your heart can  i?
 
Ham: By contuining to resist that concept, you miss what I submit is
the  meaning of life.
 
Mark: The meaning of life is to own one's awareness?
 
<snip>

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.

Ham: No.  By  subject I mean Awareness.
By object I mean Experiential Otherness.
 
Mark: This is basically solipsism: Proprioceptive Proprietary awareness,  
which is taken on faith by science i believe you said?

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.

Ham: 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: You are therefore saying, 'By contuining to resist that concept,  you 
miss what I submit is the
significance of the meaning of life which is  proprietary awareness.'
In other words, the meaning of life is the self. Bollocks to society, art,  
science, philosophy. The significance of the meaning of life is Proprioceptive  
Proprietary awareness.


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

Ham: 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.

Ham: 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.
 
Mark: It can be backed up with a great deal of evidence. It even makes  sense 
for Eastern philosophical traditions.
 
Ham: Here is my analysis:
Essentialism acknowledges all Substance to be  the appearance of Essence.
 
Mark: So essence is other than appearance?

Ham: Value is the affinity of the individual self for Essence.
 
Mark: Essence which is other than appearence?
The individual has an affinity for something which is other than  appearence?
By, 'other than appearence' don't you mean, 'An invention of ideas with no  
basis in experience other than an invention os ideas'?
 
Ham: It (that which is other than appearence and happens to be an  invention 
of ideas with no basis in experience other than an invention  os ideas) and is 
perceived differentially (because an invetion of ideas  can't be experienced 
other than as an invention of ideas) as a range of  favorable or unfavorable 
aspects of existence (In other words my preferences are  important by an appeal 
to an invention of ideas with no basis in experience  other than an invention 
os ideas) [essents] relative to the subject  (tautologically: my ideas).
 
Ham: Laws and Institutions are established by
individuals collectively  to reflect the prevailing moral values of a
society.
 
Mark: To, 'survive the prevailing moral values' if they happen to entertain  
the notion that only themselves are important, like you Ham.
 
Ham: There is no "evolutionary priority" involved either in  man-made
institutions or in the perception of value.
 
Mark: Your system does not accomodate evolution well for a number of  reasons:
1. Evolution implies determinism if the potential is becoming actual.
2. 'Betterness' or value is subjective with no basis in an invention of  
ideas with no basis in experience other than an invention  os ideas.
The only recourse you have is to appeal to mechanistic  evolution.

<snip>

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

Ham: 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.
 
Mark: If and when the USA becomes a Muslim state you can rest assured that,  
'Love, Knowledge, Beauty, Freedom, and Justice, (have been) "standardized" in  
the collective sense.

Mark: Is the Law of Gravity more important than  Love?

Ham: That is a rhetorical question.  My answer is that it  would depend on 
whether
you were flying in an airplane or encountering  romantic problems.
 
Mark: I shall take that to mean the law of gravity is subjective  then.

<snip>

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

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


<snip>

Mark: Define Quality for me please Ham?

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: If this had occured to Pirsig he wouldn't have had to write  ZMM.
All that trouble for nothing.
Oh! You're being literal in the name of wit.

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?

Ham: 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.
 
Mark: It [value] is perceived differentially as a range of favorable or  
unfavorable aspects of existence [essents] relative to the subject.
Do i have to teach you your own philosophy now  Ham?

<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.

Ham: 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: If you reflect upon your experiences you will see that your aesthetic  
sense of beauty was prior to analysis.
The suggestion of the MoQ is that this, undifferentiated aesthetic  continum' 
or DQ which is prior to all static concepts creates new concepts in  the 
first place.

Mark:
<snip snip snippity snip>

Ham: 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


Mark: It's abundantly clear that progress is not being made Ham.  Further, 
progress is being deliberatly blocked.
 
Love,
Mark