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

[Squonkonguitar at aol.com]

Mark -- 

<snip>

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.
 
Mark: Hello Ham.
Not at all. I don't know where you got that idea from? Clutching at straws  
methinks.
The MoQ emphasises freedom and has an elegant explanation for its  necessity.
Godnature.
Your thesis desperately wants to explain freedom but fails to do so; my  
assessment is based on your own statements:
You stress the importance of 'man' partaking of the divine and therefore  
free to choose to 'add' to a deterministic unfolding.
So, via man, essence contributes twofold to its unfolding:
1. By unfolding.
2. By allowing man to 'add' to the unfolding.
But how can 'man' 'add' to a determined teleology?
Man in your thesis is not man, he is Godman removed from nature.
 
Ham: 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.
 
Mark: I don't think so. I think it's more a case of Ham wanting his cake  and 
wanting to eat it at the same time.
Man is man, but Godman also.

Ham: 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.)
 
Mark: The (theoretical) predetermined unfolding of essence as final  cause 
'knows' what the future holds doesn't it Ham?
Answer: Yes Mark, indeed it does.
So, man may think he is free, but he isn't from the point of view of  Godman.
Now you are back to the, 'how can 'man' 'add' to a determined teleology'  
question, to which the answer it:
Man thinks he has free will but it's all predetermined final cause  of 
essence unfolding anyway even if he thinks he's adding to it, which  doesn't matter 
because he's Godman removed from nature.

2. A "chain of  deduction" presupposes events occurring over time.
 
Mark: It presupposes change not time. Time is an artificial imposition upon  
our experience of change.
So, now you're telling me the very rationality of man is not part of his  
divine nature?
And yet, your whole thesis begins and ends with rational thought.
 
Ham: 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.
 
Mark: You are swinging back and forth between experience of change, and the  
artificial construct of ordered time.
We don't experience time, we experience change.
It's a short step now to adding that we value change - change is of  values.
Therefore human awareness is of value.
Time is an intellectual construct of uniform division.

Ham: But this finite limitation of awareness does not affect  reality.
 
Mark: The reality of Godman? Godman's divine soul?
 
Ham: In fact,
if we're talking about Absolute Reality, there is no "flow  of events"
because Essence is immutable and timeless.
 
Mark: The Hume approach:
The timelessness of essence is an extrapolation from everyday examples, as  
Hume observed in his Treatise concerning Human understanding. It's not real,  
it's a story, a fiction, a narrative. As such, it is real in the sense that all 
 stories from Father Christmas to Legend of sleepy hollow are real, but it's 
a  Human invention. Actually, i think it's all a bit, 'My Dad's bigger than 
your  Dad' in nature. Maybe a bit, 'My Willy's bigger than your Willy' in nature 
what  with all this, 'Godman' stuff flying about?
Your thesis is an analogue of Quality which everyone experiences.
Stories of, 'That which is greatest' begin with everyday observations of  
values, which are then extended and exaggerated to infinite proportions.
This is the social aspect of your thesis which aims to garner celebrity  
status for its author.
On the intellectual level it has logical consistency - but no wonder? You  
invented the rules based on rules you have observed in other narratives.
If you say essence is the best thing since sliced bread then who can deny  
you?
After all, by definition, your essence is what you say it is.
But no one experiences it, except as a game of intellectual chess.
I could tell you i have a secret box under my bed which has all the  
properties of your essence couldn't i?
 
Even rational thought isn't real now according to your latest  statements.


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.

Ham: 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: Well, well, well, well, well, well, well how very nice.
It seems, 'man' has got a portion of himself well and truly stuck into  
essence while the rest of him is left dangling.
The MoQ dispenses with all this Father Christmas crap and appeals to  
experience.
Being is value, every last bit of it. It is all value.
If it isn't valued, it doesn't exist.
'Man' as you like to have it, isn't in any sense not an existent, in fact  
everything about 'man' as you like to have it, is as real as the day is long.  
Even his bloody awful nightmares, prejudices and fears and rational constructs  
qua rational constructs.
Natural events are made of the same stuff (values) as man; he is therefore  
IN the world and not an outside observer enjoying a jolly at everything  else's 
expense.
So, natural events are not predetermined, and neither is 'man' as you like  
to have it, because values are responding to DQ, which is always new, and 
always  changing.
Your thesis turns man into Godman removed from nature.

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.

Ham: 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.
 
Mark: Ah yes. That bit which is divine.
The soul now is it?
It's taken along time bit i'm slowly dragging it out of you.
OK. So man has a divine soul which has access to Essence which you  term, 
'proprietary self' for some daft reason known only to yourself.
Essence is the, 'other world' of the timeless absolute.
(Probably sounds better than, 'divine soul' i suppose? A bit more  scientific 
and considered even though science is the product of rational  thought, which 
is not part of the divine as we have just learned.)
I imagine Women have a divine soul also, but linguistic convention gets in  
the way of explicitly saying so, so sod any consideration of them.
Most Humans may, rather regrettably, entertain notions that other people  are 
things which really matter but not according to Ham's thesis.
Oh no!
Other people are Lockean qualities to the eye but 'divine souls' on the  
inside; divine souls which cannot be attained rationally because the rational  
changes and the divine is changeless.
 
[SNIP]

<snip>

Ham: "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: Value is everything. Awareness is included in the category of  
everything, so awareness is value, numpty.

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.

Ham: I'm surprised that you  would categorize a philosophy as a pattern of 
value.
I ssume that  Essentialism, then, is another pattern of value.
 
Mark: Yes, it is. It's an intellectual pattern of value, and as  intellectual 
patterns of value are the most moral, i support your endeavour,  even if at 
times you come across as an arrogant, 'I know it all, and you poor  
'Pirsigians', (private titter) are a sad lot of no-hopers.'
Being a Godman certainly gives you an advantage i see.
 
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: Aesthetic. I've said this already: Mathematicians choose the best  
thesis on aesthetic grounds.

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.

Ham: 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: Quality is experienced not deduced Ham. When is this going to sink  in?

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

Ham: 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?)
 
Mark: 'The particle physicist John Polkinghorne observes (1996, p.103) that  
harmony
enters the picture the moment scientists talk among themselves: ‘“It  must 
be right” is
the way [scientists] feel about an elegant and insightful  idea, often long 
before the
empirical adequacy of the theory has been  verified to a degree sufficient to 
warrant
such a conclusion.’ Polkinghorne  cites the example of the mathematician, 
Paul Dirac
(who was awarded the Nobel  prize in 1933 for his work in quantum mechanics) 
and
Einstein who  believed that his theory of special relativity was ‘just too  
good to be
wrong’ before subsequent experiments confirmed  his confidence.
This search for beautiful equations is more than a mere  mathematical
aestheticism. The reason that we believe that we find the best  explanation of
physical phenomena in this way derives from our experience  that such theories
have time and again proved to have a fruitfulness  extending far beyond the
original phenomena for which they were invented. In  science, the beautiful is
the good because it has proved to be the fertile.  Dirac’s lifetime search for
beautiful equations is an object lesson that this  is so, as is Einstein’s 
discovery of
general relativity through a similar  eight-year quest. (Polkinghorne, 1996, 
p.105)'
(McWatt. 2004. p. 45 my emphasis)
 
'However, whatever the term employed for fundamental reality,
there does  appear to be some agreement (as observed in Section 2.1.) between
Buddhism  and physicists in that it is essentially harmonic in nature. An  
important
part of this understanding is Nagarjuna’s notion of sunyata  (non-dual 
understanding)
which he regards as relating to a fundamental  harmony. Evidence that this 
just isn’t
a romantic whim is provided by Pirsig  in reference to the mathematician 
Poincaré
and his colleague in the field of  physics, Albert Einstein who both 
emphasised the
harmonic nature of the  universe. (ibid)


[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.

Ham: 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.
 
Mark: I not only appreciate freedom but i have a superior metaphysical  
explanation for it as morality itself.
I don't need to consider myself a Godman in order to make myself feel  
important and superior.

Ham: 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
 
Mark: If you carry on the in the manner i have become accustomed to i think  
you're going to drop yourself right in it.
The latest revelation is that, 'man' has a divine soul.
Problem is, you dishonestly derive man's divine soul from your thesis when  
your thesis has been shaped to have divine soul as a conclusion:
Godman, removed from filthy nature and made of higher stuff.
Bully Beef for you Ham.
Love,
Mark
 
P.S.
 
Welcome to Sun State
The language of  light
The energies impulse
The loud, dark, iron
The purpose of  history
In Eurasian Steppes
>From threshold to  threshold
Astonishment

You’ve misunderstood the place where you  stand
God Man

You’ve misunderstood the place where you stand
God  Man

>From different maps
Dead bees on a cake
You’re sweeping the  forest
Man, it’s getting late
The milkweed is growing
Through cotton  grass
You borrowed the car
But you didn’t ask

You’ve misunderstood  the place where you stand
God Man

You’ve misunderstood the place where  you stand
God Man

You’ve misunderstood the place where you  stand
God Man

And everything’s dark
Then you’re wrapped up
Born  into brightness

You’ve misunderstood the place where you stand
You’ve  misunderstood the place where you stand
You’ve misunderstood the place where  you stand