[MD] Ham thinks the <OQ is a form of phenomenalism

[Squonkonguitar at aol.com]

Mark --

There are times when I get the feeling that, rather than  engaging in a
dialogue, I'm being subjected to an inquisition to determine  the extent of
my
heresy against the canonical tenets of Robert  Pirsig.
 
Mark: Hello Ham.
I'm curious to push your own thesis to see where it leads that's all.
If you're not interested in a Metaphysics of Quality that's fine.
 
Ham: This is such a time.
As you seem to be annoyed by my "generalized"  answers, I'll conduct my
Defense based on specific questions, if that is  permissable by you.  Kindly
try to remember that I consider myself a  free-thinker who is not bound by
the tenets of Plato, Aristotle, Kant,  Descartes, or Pirsig.
 
Mark: I'm happy to encourage free thinking.
If the MoQ impedes your free thought then you must avoid it.
 
Ham: If that is a
"sin" by your standards, then you have judged me  guilty on prima facie
evidence.
 
Mark: The thing i find most unacceptable about your responses is your  
apparent unfamiliarity with the works of Robert Pirsig.
I mean, this IS a forum called, 'MOQ.org' so it would be nice if you  
informed yourself before trotting out the quips.

You ask:
> I am  still waiting to hear what your views
> on evolution are?  Are you a  creationist?

Ham: Evolution is the organizational working out of  something to a specific
end -- i.e., "action by final causation".
 
Mark: Now stop there please. Do you realise an implication of what you  have 
just said?
You have just provided a teleology for your philosophy which negates  freedom.
Sorry mate, but you have.
 
Ham: I recognize, as did Plotinus,
that all existents, including our  mode of perceiving them, are derived from
a timeless Source.
 
Mark: When you say, 'I recognise' do you mean you agree with the conclusion  
of a chain of deduction?
This is important because the MoQ does not deduce a timeless Source, the  MoQ 
says it's empirical.
 
Ham: But, since the mode of human perception is temporal,
things are  intellectually conceived to arise in an orderly fashion over the
span of  time.  Therefore, insofar as we are speaking from an  existential
perspective, Evolution, as described by Darwin, is not only  compatible with
my philosophy of Essence, it's a useful scenario for  investigating and
understanding natural principles, especially as they apply  to the
development of biological organisms.
 
Mark: When you say, '...human perception is temporal, things are  
intellectually conceived to arise in an orderly fashion...' you could very  easily be 
saying, 'Human perception preferences temporal order as intellectually  
conceived.'
In other words, temporal are Human values.
Ironically, you argue time is empirical, 'the mode of human perception is  
temporal, things are intellectually conceived to arise in an orderly fashion  
over the span of time' while the primary source is deduced. The MoQ reverses  
this and says Quality is the empirical primary source while organised  time is 
deduced from intellectual values. (Don't confuse time with change  because even 
biological patterns value change.)
Trouble is, your temporal change is, 'an organizational working out of  
something to a specific end' so it looks severely deterministic. All your  choices 
are part of the unfolding and cannot have been otherwise Ham -  intellectually 
conceived that is. But your Source is intellectually conceived  also isn't it?
So, it looks like you're contradicting yourself, because you have conceived  
the non-temporal intellectually.
Oh dear. It's looking a bit shaky isn't it?

Ham: On the other hand,  I am not an Evolutionist; that is, I do not 
subscribe to
the notion that  everything is necessarily a product of evolution.  For
example,  cognizant precepts or values, such as intellect, beauty, morality,
and  justice, except for the effects of cultural conditioning, are the same
today  as they always were.
 
Mark: I see. Thanks.
So, Intellect always was and continues to be and did not evolve.
I suspect you regard intellect as a cause then? The Cosmos is, in some  
regard or other, caused by intellect.

Ham: Am I a "Creationist"?   This is a relatively new label usually applied 
by ID
antagonists to Seventh  Day Adventists and other fundamentist sects who
believe that Man and Nature  were created in six days by an anthropomorphic
deity.  If that is your  definition -- Creationism isn't even defined in my
dictionary -- then,
my  answer is unequivocally No.  If, however, you are asking: Do I  believe
Man to be a special creation of the Primary Source?, I would have to  say
Yes.
 
Mark: Fair enough. Humanity partakes of intellect which is a cause of  the 
Cosmos so Humanity is special in this regard.
Humanity has something of the divine about it which the rest of the  
biosphere is excluded from.

I asked:
> Why is my concept of Essence any less valid [than  DQ]
> as a realm that we do not have [direct] access  to?

Mark:
> The whole point about Quality is that we do  have
> direct access to it, that's why it is possible to claim  value
> is more empirical than science.
> Keep up for goodness sake  Ham please?
> Essence is an intellectual construct post-Quality  awareness.
> See the difference?

Ham: I see the difference you're  trying to make in your argument, but I don't
accept the premise that value is  more empirical than science.
 
Mark: I'm not arguing i'm appealing to experience.
Quality is immediate experienced while essence is deduced.
 
Ham: Also, I'm
aware that many people are oblivious to the quality I  recognize in certain
things.  People who are tone-deaf cannot realize  the quality of music.
People untrained in science, math or logic cannot be  expected to perceive
the quality of a theorem.  Barbarians bound to  tribal customs are unable to
appreciate the value of freedom.  In fact,  unless you restrict Quality to
somatic sensations like pain or pleasure, it  is not empirically true that
Quality is directly accessible.
 
Mark: Not so Ham. You've forgotten to talk to your mathematicians who will  
invariably tell you the sense of quality of a new theorem is experienced as a  
signifier that the theorem works. Quality is experienced before intellectual  
patterns; they are empirical.

Ham:
> Is Pirsig's DQ not a  "rationalized" construction?

Mark:
> No.

Ham: Then please  explain to me how he arrived at the concept.
 
Mark: DQ is the conceptually unknown so it can't be rational or a construct  
can it?
I gather you have read SODV?

Ham:
> Is [the MoQ] not,  therefore, placeable within
> the evolutionary history of Western  philosophical
> tradition?

Mark:
> The western tradition has  largely ignored The Good
> over Truth. In a sense, this is one of the main  points of
> ZMM if you have read it?
> So, no. It's been largely  ignored.

Ham: That's strange.  In my studies of Western Philosophy,  defining what is
morally good appears to have been the major objective.
 
Mark: The telling word here is, 'define.' The Good cannot be defined.
 
Ham: Finding the summum
bonum was the quest of Plato and Aristotle, and  even theoreticians like Kant
and Spinoza seem to have been obsessed with this  issue.  I don't know how
you can say it's been largely ignored.
 
Mark: They were too busy trying to define it they didn't realise the  
significance of the Good.

Mark:
> The problem with Aristotle and  much of the Western
> tradition is the avoidance of recognising the formal  role
> of Quality in rational thought.

Ham: Well, that's a bit  self-aggrandizing, isn't it?  After all, you can't 
expect
Aristotle to  have read ZMM and LILA, can you?  Ill bet Aristotle couldn't
even have  told you what a Creationist is.
 
Mark: Aristotle read Protagoras and Protagoras stressed the nature of the  
Good.
Plato wrote some of his most arduous Socratic dialogue coping with  
Protagoras.
I certainly acknowledge my statement sounds abysmally self-aggrandising to  
those who are not aware of the sophists and their emphasis on the Good.
(And not how the sophists are usually painted - as the pushers of little  
more than one-upmanship and epicureanism.)
ZMM may be seen as a continuation of the sophist movement beyond the social  
level and into the intellectual level - modern sophists recognise the formal  
role of the Good in rational thought.

Ham:
> The problem I do see is that Pirsig has assiduously  avoided
> naming DQ as the Primary Source.

Mark:
> DQ is  metaphorically termed the cutting edge of reality from
> which our static  knowledge is extruded, rather like the vapour
> trail from a jet  engine.  If you consider our understanding to BE
> the vapour trail  itself then the vapour trail can't encapsulate it's
> source can  it?

Ham: I'm trying to imagine a vapor trail as a "cutting edge".
 
Mark: I didn't say the vapour trail is a cutting edge.
I said the vapour trail is extruded from a jet engine.
You understand what extrusion means don't you?
 
Ham: You must mean the
sharply defined part of the trail nearest the jet  engine which plumes out as
the plane leaves it.
 
Mark: I didn't say the vapour trail is a cutting edge.  
I said the vapour trail is extruded from a jet engine.
You understand what extrusion means don't you?

 
Ham: Of course the vapor trail can't encapsulate the
source; the source  is a solid object, the trail is a cloud.
 
Mark: My my.

Ham:
> [Quality] is posited as a background or  "ground of reality",
> if you will, but not as the causative 'first  principle'.

Mark:
> Bloody hell, you're off with causation  again.
> The MoQ regards causation as a problem inherent in
>  rational thought itself. It's a problem generator rather than
> a problem  solver.  How many times have i now tried to
> inform you that  causation is rejected in the MoQ?
> Having said that, i understand you are  tied to causation as
> a technical term included your metaphysics.  I  think this
> generates enormous problems for you.

Ham: You see, I  think the problem is yours.  If you are unable to establish a
starting  point for your cosmogony, you have no cosmogony.  Evolution
presupposes  a beginning and an end.  If reality is a process, whether you
call it  'causal' or 'serial', it must have a starting point.  Science
currently  theorizes the Big Bang as the starting point for the universe.
Where does  your MoQ reality begin, what is its source, and what is its final
end?   You have still not answered those questions.
 
Mark:
"All life is a migration of static patterns of quality toward  Dynamic
Quality."
...In traditional, substance-centered metaphysics, life  isn't evolving toward
anything.  Life's just an extension of the  properties of atoms, nothing
more.  It has to be that because atoms and  varying forms of energy are all
there is.  But in the Metaphysics of  Quality, what is evolving isn't
patterns of atoms.  What's evolving is  static patterns of value, and while
that doesn't change the data of evolution  it completely up-ends the
interpretation that can be given to evolution.  (Lila. ch. 11.)
The source of sq patterns isn't explicitly stated in Lila so i can't answer  
that one with a quote.
As you know, i've been trying to fill in the blanks on that one, if indeed  
there is a blank.
Perhaps the answer is DQ?
DQ > Chaos > sq/chaos > four evolutionary levels >>>>  DQ
It looks to me like chaos is being swapped for coherence along the way in a  
similar sense to the way Potential is converted into the Actual in a 
traditional  substance metaphysics, but the MoQ model is Dynamic and  free.

Mark:
> Quality is essential to Human experience - Human  life.
> A life without Quality would kill you.

Ham: Why is  that?  What about those who don't experience Love, Beauty,  
Freedom,
Compassion, or Spirituality?  These are qualities (values),  aren't they?
 
Mark: And don't such people seem a bit dead?

Ham: Yet, such people are alive.  I would turn your assertion  around and say 
a
world without awareness would kill Quality.
 
Mark: Ah! Apologies Ham. You see, for you death is a substance based  concept 
and equates to biological death.
The MoQ is more subtle than that. Life without, 'Love, Beauty, Freedom,  
Compassion, or Spirituality' is less Dynamic and therefore more static and  
therefore less alive and more dead.
In a value centred metaphysics like the MoQ you can kill more than  
biological patterns; you can kill intellectual patterns and social patterns and  still 
remain biologically alive. Think about Gorge Bush as an example of the  
biologically living but intellectually dead and you may have some idea of what  i'm 
getting at?
'Until now he had
always felt that these static patterns were  dead.  They have no love.  They
offer no promise of anything.   To succumb to them is to succumb to death,
since that which does not change  cannot live.  But now he was beginning to
see that this radical bias  weakened his own case.  Life can't exist on
Dynamic Quality alone.   It has no staying power.  To cling to Dynamic
Quality alone apart from  any static patterns is to cling to chaos.  He saw
that much can be  learned about Dynamic Quality by studying what it is not
rather than futilely  trying to define what it is.
Static quality patterns are dead when they are  exclusive, when they demand
blind obedience and suppress Dynamic  change.  But static patterns,
nevertheless, provide a necessary  stabilizing force to protect Dynamic
progress from degeneration.   Although Dynamic Quality, the Quality of
freedom, creates this world in which  we live, these patterns of static
quality, the quality of order, preserve our  world.  Neither static nor
Dynamic Quality can survive without the  other.' (Lila. ch. 9)

Mark:
> The segmentation of Quality is an  intellectual activity.

On that we are in agreement.

Mark:
>  Actually, there is an evolutionary path which begins
> with Inorganic  patterns of sq.
> And, it is speculated in Lila that inorganic patterns  were
> escaping up the evolutionary ladder away from chaos.
>  Remember the vapour trail analogy?  Well, my
> speculations in  cosmogony try to view the distant
> vapour trail before it dissipates out  of sight.

Ham: Patterns were escaping up the evolutionary ladder -- like  a vapor trail?
Sounds like smoke and mirrors to me.


Mark: Come on? Own up? You really ARE 12 years old aren't you?

[SNIP]

Mark:
> The MoQ does not reject biological  sensations and emotions.
> These patterns are imprinted on Inorganic atoms  and
> molecules and are spatio-temporally localised as 'Ham.'
> Does  this make sense?

Ham: Is this space/time localization an intellectual  construct or an innate
function of Nature?
 
Mark: Space-time is an intellectual description of the Inorganic  level.
Sensations and emotions are Biological experiences.
These levels share an evolutionary relationship driven by DQ.
 
Ham: Does the MoQ Reality include the dimensions (patterns?)
of time and  space as pre-intellectual attributes?
 
Mark: No. DQ is pre-intellectual - pre-all awareness.
sq comprises intellectual patterns and one such intellectual pattern is  
space-time.

Mark:
> Issues of property at the social and  intellectual levels
> are another kettle of 'flisk' as Zeppo Marx would  have it.
> Social patterns of imitated behaviour are imprinted on
>  Biological patterns.

Ham: What is the stamp that makes such  imprints?
 
Mark: I think the, 'stamp' is a struggle between the two levels as they  
compete to dominate each other.
As a higher level begins to dominate its lower level, a pattern of mutually  
supportive but biased upwardly patterns of preferences emerge with which each  
level can live with.
 
Ham: In other words, where do the
patterns come from?
 
Mark: Again, the patterns emerge from a struggle of Dynamic pushes  forward.
 
Ham: And what is the ultimate pattern -- the teleological
goal of this  reality?
 
Mark: The moves forward are Dynamic, open, and become more free as  evolution 
progresses. The goal is DQ itself.
 
Ham: I'm sorry if you regard these as 'causal' questions.
 
Mark: I don't regard them as causal questions.

Ham: But you're presenting me with a hypothesis, expecting me to accept  it on
faith in the author's knowledge.  All the patterns you mention  have to be
derived from some source; otherwise, they're hanging in limbo,  like so many
angels on the head of a pin.
 
Mark: The patterns are won and lost in the Dynamic forge of evolutionary  
development.
The good patterns like DNA and Democracy survive while competing patterns  
lost out.
 
Ham: It's one thing to believe in an entity that
had no beginning and  never changes.
 
Mark: We may have wondered into the Mystic side called Quality here.
You will have to see for yourself i can't help you much here.
'By even using the term "Quality" he had already violated the nothingness  of
mystic reality.  The use of the term "Quality" sets up a pile of  questions
of its own that have nothing do with mystic reality and walks  away
leaving them unanswered.  Even the name, "Quality," was a kind  of
definition since it tended to associate mystic reality with certain  fixed
and limited understandings.  Already he was in trouble.' (Lila.  ch. 9)
 
Ham: But you want me to believe in patterned
imprints that give rise to  things that are constantly in flux -- like Ham
Priday, who began as a  fertilized egg and transmorphized into an old man.
That's not an easy  scenario to follow (or swallow).
 
Mark: Now we are back in metaphysics and DQ is the flux while patterns are  
the stabilising aspect of evolution.
And DQ is a moral, aesthetic, and primary, cutting edge flux.
It's an elegant concept which can appeal to experience.
 
Mark:
< What makes you think atoms do not exhibit very low  level
> awareness appropriate to their relationships?
> What makes  you think value is not a fundamental aspect
> of reality?
> The  difference between atoms and Ham is a vast
> (and i mean VAST) path of  value evolution (vapour trail).

Ham: You're still blowing smoke at me,  Mark.  There are lots of reasons for
doubting the notion that inanimate  behavior is due to "low level awareness".
(Talk about "religious  baggage"!)  This pagan belief was once called
"animism", and it has  since been relegated to the scrap heap of superstition
and witchcraft.
 
Mark: Give me a bit of credit here Ham?
Inanimate behaviour?
We understand that inorganic matter is far from inanimate at the molecular  
level Ham, please?
It is here we focus our attention when we move to account for things like  
quantum interference patterns and shit like that.
I'm not suggesting stones talk to people named Derrick and have magical  
powers.
I'm suggesting the vast energetic fizz of atomic activity is very low level  
awareness appropriate to the environment.
 
Ham: It is a substitute for Teleology in which the constituents
of  Nature are "pulled" toward an ultimate state by a supernatural force.
 
Mark: Acknowledging the conceptually unknown (DQ) does not necessarily mean  
we have willingly abandoned ourselves to ignorance and superstition.
'Pirsig (2000p) uses the following definitions of supernatural:
‘I agree  with these dictionary definitions of supernatural: 1. Of or 
relating to  existence
outside the natural world. 2. Attributed to a power that seems to  violate or 
go beyond
natural forces. 3. Of or relating to a deity. 4. Of or  relating to the 
immediate exercise
of divine power; miraculous. 5. Of or  relating to the miraculous. I should 
add that
Shunryu Suzuki has quipped that  Zen is “supernatural” in the sense of being 
super
natural, that is, more  natural than what is usually meant by natural.’ 
(McWatt. 2004. p.49)
 
Ham: Your author scoffs at supernaturalism because it suggests a Creator,  
which
of course is unpalatable to the postmodern elitist.  So, now we've  had to
invent memes, biogenesis, sweet spots, and low-level awareness to  explain
it.  I don't concern myself with elitist snobbery.  For me,  creation is the
work of a Creator, and the design of the cosmos is the  actualized
(differentiated) experience of Essence.
 
Mark: Fair enough. If you have rationally deduced there to be a creator and  
Humanity is its special buddy then so be it.
re: postmodernism. I'm not a fan. I think it's a load of garbage.
re: memes. A nod toward recognising an independent social level of  evolution 
by science itself.
re: biogenesis. I don't know what this is. I'll have to look it up.
re: sweet spots. Part of experience. Explain them?
re: low-level awareness. Too low to be worried about. It's so immoral all  
life tries to move away from it.

Ham:
> Rather than acknowledge  awareness as proprietary to the
> individual,  Pirsig marginalizes  human sensibility and
> distributes awareness throughout the experienced  universe,
> describing its affects on atoms, rocks, trees, and evolution  itself.

Mark:
> As does Plotinus and Spinoza so it's not unheard  of.
> And Human sensibility is not marginalised by this, it is in  fact
> prioritised as the more moral. ...In other words, the most
>  recent portions of the vapour trail are the more moral.

Ham: More  smoke!
 
Mark: No, seriously, Intellectual values are the most moral, dynamic, and  
worthwhile according to the MoQ.
This is why i support you Ham even if you can't see the holes in your  thesis.

Mark:
> The primary source in the MoQ is the cutting or  leading edge
> of evolution.  Recall the vapour trail  analogy?
> The primary source is HERE and NOW and you get closer
>  to it if you concentrate on the HERE and NOW.
> Now then, move the cutting  edge back through evolution itself
> and we may, or may not, reach a point  called Chaos.
> Either way, the primary source is here and  now.

Ham: I happen to like harmony and cogency.  Why should I strive  to reach a 
point
called Chaos?
 
Mark: What are you talking about:
1. Here and now?
2. The start?
3. The end?

Ham:
> This universalization of Quality (Value) is  the very hallmark
> of the MoQ; it is what distinguishes Pirsig's  philosophy from
> all others in the esteemed "Western  tradition".

Mark:
> But it never was distinguished from the Eastern  tradition,
> where Quality is accepted.

Ham: I'm not really into  Eastern tradition.  Can you provide an example of 
where
this tradition  accepts Quality?
 
Mark: Pirsig called his first book, 'Zen and the art of motorcycle  
maintenance' so there's a clue there.
'For Pirsig, therefore, sentences
containing terms such as ‘good’ are  expressing a genuine proposition.
It is this harmony, this beauty, that is at  the center of it all… It is the 
quest of
this special classic beauty, the  sense of harmony of the cosmos, which makes 
us
choose the facts most fitting  to contribute to this harmony. (Pirsig, 1974a, 
p.268)
This view is supported  by Nagarjuna (c.300a, p.275) who relates ‘nothingness’
 to
the underlying  harmony of the universe:
Sunyata (non-dual understanding) as the principle of  comprehension is the
true principle of harmony. The harmony worked on the  basis of sunyata is the
highest kind, and of all the ways of establishing  harmony, this is the best. 
This
harmony excels all others.
The Zen arts,  when practiced carefully, are designed to reveal the 
fundamental
harmony (the  ‘artless art’) inherent in nature.

Ham:
> Why is my philosophy of  Essence free of these deficiencies?  I
> believe I can explain that  quite simply.

Mark:
> Well, you've not been able to sustain any  deficiencies in the MoQ
> because your apparent deficiencies are, upon  closer inspection,
> misunderstandings.

Ham: Well, since you refuse  to acknowledge what I've clearly pointed out as
metaphysical inadequacies,  there's no point in showing how I've overcome
them, is there?  This  intransigency is Mark "blocking progress" not  Ham.

[SNIP]

Mark:
> Your culturally inherited intellectual  grounds for division
> are clear from your on-line thesis.
> The MoQ  goes about it a different way by harmonising
> Eastern and Western  traditions.

As you said, fair enough, so leave it  alone.

Ham:
> Since everything in the (experiential) universe is  Being,
> and all Being is divided, mankind and Intelligence are  divided.
> But man's awareness is unique in that it is divided from  Being,
> thus has no existence except as it perceives Being as its  object.
> This perception is an intellectual construct derived from  its
> affinity for Essence, which we call Value.
> The poet muses  that 'Love is what makes the world go 'round,'
> but Value is what makes  the world.
> And Value would not exist were there no awareness of  it.
> It is the individual, therefore, who by sensing the Value of  the
> Source makes being-aware.  And that which is of value  to
> the individual is the Essence of his Being.

Mark:
> What  a pile of toss.

Ham: I consider that a "low quality" appraisal,  Mark.  I happen to think 
that's a
pretty good precise, and I'll stack it  up against your vapor trails any day.
 
Mark: It is a low quality appraisal and i apologise for  it.

Mark:
> You are neither here, nor there.
> It seems to me  you are a staunch individualist of the
> Ayn Rand mould and have  shoehorned your cherry pickings
> from what philosophy you have read to  support it.

Ham: You have the right to that opinion, even though it's  absurd.

Mark:
> I mean, even the most cursory observation of an Ant  colony
> suggests ants exhibit awareness of their environment at a  very
> basic level ...

Ham: Oh yes, the "hive mentality".   Birds and bees and ants.  I've heard it 
all
before.
This is  biological instinct, nothing more.  It's programmed into the genes.
But  at least you're attributing "awareness" to something animate for  a
change.
 
Mark: I agree.

Mark:
> The world of metaphysics you enjoy and  explore is a
> fascinating and worthwhile endeavour. May it provide  you
> with hours of fun.  I too have studied Plotinus and that  kind
> of thing, and i've been lucky enough to have done so with
>  an expert; we're talking Oxford bloke who spoke ancient greek
> when he  was 12 and reads Plotinus in the original. The same
> man is a fan of  Pirsig by the way and indicated similarities
> between ZMM and the Enneads  to me.
> My fragile mind tried to cope with those things i was
>  introduced to, and i enjoyed it all.
> I love Plotinus, Aristotle, Plato  and allot else, but the
>MoQ has, IMHO hit the nail on the head.
>  The Western tradition is valuable and part of value evolution.
> But it's  2006 and we have a whole global cultural vista before
> us which began to  open up after the second world war when
> Northrop wrote, 'The meeting of  East and West'
> -  a book which inspired Pirsig to explore more than  we had
> up to that point been able to comprehend.
> This forum,  MOQ.org exists because of the increasing
> dialogue between diverse  philosophical traditions, and i
> find it a tad insulting that you have  been using it to force
> your own views with a lack of grace. I support  you in
> your enquiry. I value your enquiry. But you have  conducted
> your enquiry with a sneering disregard and barely  hidden
> contempt for ideas you repeatedly reveal to be ignorant  of.
> And in philosophy Ham, that is a poor show.
> You are a guest  here and you've been caught pissing
> in the Whiskey.

Ham: Well,  don't hold back on my account, Mark.  I gave you the best I had, 
but
I'm  just a passing inquirer in this forum.  I never studied at Oxford  and
only took one Philosophy course, let alone having a professor who  spoke
ancient Greek at 12.  I guess Northrop was lucky to have been born  at a time
when value had evolved enough for him to make a contribution.   I'll overlook
the deprecating comments, but I am sorry you think that I've  "forced my own
views" on you.  It was my intention to have a productive  and congenial
dialogue with someone who was interested in my philosophy and  open to new
perspectives.  Apparently, you had another agenda for which  I don't qualify.

Best of luck with your philosophy career,
Ham
 
Mark: Come off it Ham? You've been talking down your nose about this MoQ  
lark as if you're having to contemplate a dog turd.
I've not studied at Oxford. But if someone has and they know their Plotinus  
and they quite like ZMM and promote an enthusiastic engagement with things  
philosophical then i feel we can too?
Take your vapour trail quips in this very thread? There's no need for it is  
there?
I mean, i am trying to get what may be an unfamiliar point of view across  to 
you and all i get is sarcasm.
It doesn't have to be like this.
Love,
Mark