[MD] Ham thinks the MOQ Is a form of phenomenalism

[Ham Priday]

Mark -- 

Mark:

> Then you have confirmed what i said. Essence is a
> chain of deduction.
> In other words, Essence is an intellectual postulation.
> More than this, 'Man' comes before essence truth be known!
> It is man who invents essence and then says, 'Essence
> created me.'
> Quality is experienced by everyone, and then we can say,
> 'Quality created me.'
>
> Sounds to me like your committed to determinism.
> You want your cake and you want to eat it but truth is,
> you can't be sure can you?

I see that you have chained yourself to the determinism of Pirsig's foes,
the logical positivists.  This perverted reasoning binds you to the precept
that there is no free will.  Yet, ironically, you accuse me of being
"committed to determinism -- tied to causation as a technical term".  That's
just not true.  You have misinterpreted me, Mark.

I've acknowledged only that, from the human (temporal) perspective, events
are thought to be the result of causal forces or conditions, and that,
theoretically, if all of the forces could be determined, it would be
possible to predict all events.  There are two major fallacies in this
argument.

1. Our inability to access the future prevents us from knowing beforehand
what the outcome of the given conditions will be.  (At best we can analyze
only a few very limited events in hindsight.)

2. A "chain of deduction" presupposes events occurring over time.  You said:
"we do not experience space-time, we postulate it."  I'll accept the view
that the serial flow of events is the experiential mode of human awareness.
But this finite limitation of awareness does not affect reality.  In fact,
if we're talking about Absolute Reality, there is no "flow of events"
because Essence is immutable and timeless.

Mark:
> I don't agree with your stance and i don't think you give
> a good account of why Humans are privileged in this regard.
> As far as the MoQ is concerned ALL patterns are involved
> in an evolutionary process from atoms to ideas.
> Being is as close as you want to be to it.

It's not a question of how "close to being" man is.  It's the metaphysical
principle that man (i.e., proprietary awareness) is not an existent, that
awareness and beingness are mutually exclusive in the dichotomy of
existence.  This frees man from the causal "chain of deduction" whereby
natural events are predetermined.

Mark:
> 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.

Ham:
> I would eliminate the collectivist term "humanity"
> which is misleading in this context.

Mark:
> Men and Women are Humans. Humanity is a collective
> of both men and women.

But awareness of Self and Other is not Humanity.  Experience is not
Humanity.  Cognizant intelligence is not Humanity.  You Pirsigians dearly
want to be "humanists", and, as a consequence, you eradicate the very soul
of Man -- his proprietary Self.

[SNIP]

Mark:
> I noticed recently that you had to tweak your thesis in order to
> explain the nature of value in this context Ham.
> You used the term, esthesis? (See? I have been following you)
> As you know, the MoQ does not confine value to Humans;
> values are reality itself.  Therefore, the divine is tasted by
> everything (even women) in increasing degrees of evolutionary
> progress - in fact, evolution simply IS value evolution.

What you refer to (deridingly) as "tweaking my thesis" was simply a recent
edit of my Glossary aimed at making Sensibility more understandable.  The
term does not appear elsewhere in my website and, in fact, does not change
my original thesis at all.  Here's the term as used in my definition for
Sensibility: "Cognizant awareness; the capacity to perceive and interpret
value conditionally (as beingness) by means of organically derived sense
impressions; in Essence, the absolute integration of esthesis (sensation)
and quiddity (beingness).

"Evolution simply IS value evolution" is a simplistic way of saying "Value
is everything".  Even if this were true, where would Value be -- what point
would it serve -- if there were no awareness of it?  Clearly, there is no
Value without sensibility or awareness; therefore, Value cannot be
everything.

Mark:
> Quality is immediate experience from which patterns
> such as deductions emerge.
> A theory of Quality, called the MoQ, which is an
> intellectual pattern of value, allows you to look for
> yourself and observe there to be Inorganic,
> Biological, Social and Intellectual realms of values.
> It is verifiable.

I'm surprised that you would categorize a philosophy as a pattern of value.
I ssume that Essentialism, then, is another pattern of value.  Since there
can be an infinite number of such patterns, how are we to know which is the
"better" one?  Or, is this something that the evolution of Value itself can
tell us?

Mark:
> In what sense is Essence experienced?  How can people
> verify essence except purely as a chain of deductive inference
> with no basis in empirical reality other than intellectual reality?
> Quality is experienced while essence is deduced.

Honestly, I recognize no significant difference in the human sensibility to
what you call Quality and what I call Value.  That is, pain, joy,
magnificance, freedom, justice, truth, mediocrity, excellence, brightness,
darkness, etc., are all values to me.  We agree that values and qualities
are directly experienced.  The only difference is that I see them as
relative, and you describe them as "high" or "low" quality patterns.  But
Essence is not Value, and no finite creature has direct experience of what
is absolute.  You might say that I have "deduced" Essence, in the same way
that you've deduced Quality or that the theologians deduced God.
Inasmuch as we don't have access to absolute knowledge, we must arrive at
such conceptions deductively.  That ensures our freedom of choice -- the
autonomy of man.

Mark:
> Theory is chosen on aesthetic grounds which is to say
> upon their value.

Try telling that to the theorist of science or mathematics.  If he could
choose his theories purely on esthetic grounds, he could dispense with all
that bothersome investigation, analysis, testing, and proof.  (Was that
Einstein rolling over in his grave?)

[SNIP]

Mark:
> The claim is that ALL reasoning processes are emerging
> from DQ as an aesthetic.
> DQ is the source of rationality itself.
> Essence is nothing without rational thought - Essence begins
> and ends with rational thought, but not experienced except
> as rational thought.
> All your guff about 'man' tasting the divine is a pointer toward
> the Quality you experience being codified as a pattern of
> rational intellectual thought, in the same way religion is a
> Social patterning of the Quality devout religious people
> experience in their lives being codified in their religion.
> In other words, you worship in the church of reason.

Thus shall it ever be, if man is free to choose.  Science will never provide
empirical proof for the proposition that there is a Creator or that there is
not a Creator.  Only intuitive reasoning can arrive at such conclusions.
The "law of free choice" is part of the cosmic design.  Individual Freedom
is a value that you apparently don't fully appreciate.

Congratulations on your A-level achievements in Math, Physics, and
Chemistry.  (I was a B student at best in the first two, and eked out a
passing grade in Organic Chemistry after two tries.)

While, you'll undoubtedly have more remarks on my last installment, I see
this debate as a No Winner.  Our mindsets are at odds on the fundamentals,
and there is little either of us can say that will change our thinking.  I'm
pleased that you are following my thesis, which shows intellectual
curiosity, if nothing else.  But I feel that we have reached an impasse and
should probably go on to other things.  Do you still want to agree to
disagree?

Cheers,
Ham