[MD] David M and DMB clearly disagree -what do others think?

[Ham Priday]

Greetings to both Davids -- 

I'm probably the last person you'd want to talk to, but I got your call for
help and decided to jump in.  I think you both have a strange notion of
causal reality, but I have to side with dmb in this argument.

For example, David M said to dmb:
> You are very confused.
> The possible is the mother of all that is actual.

I would say you are confused here, David.  What happens to this "mother"
when the possibility is actualized?  She's dead on delivery, because
possibility loses meaning once the event occurs.  Possibility is not power,
energy, or potentiality.  It is only the temporal (intellectual) precept
that one of a number of events will occur.  If all the causal factors are
known, the event isn't a possibility but the inevitable result of the causal
factors.  If you let go of a ball while standing on the floor, it's not a
possibility that the ball will drop to the floor; it's a predictable fact
based on the law of gravity.  When we don't know the causal factors involved
in a process, the outcome is a random event; i.e., one of many
possibilities.  If we know the factors, the outcome is somewhat predictable,
that is to say, "probable".

The "mother of actuality" is potentiality, which may or not be SQ, depending
on how you interpret Pirsig's philosophy.

> How do we build, what do we build with, if not possibilities?
> no possibilities no DQ I'm afraid. Surely DQ is real DMB?

DMB:
> I can see that you're trying to equate DQ with "the possible"
> but it doesn't work.

It doesn't work for me.

David M:
> I think the inner/outer distinction and the mathematics
> example both betray the fact that you're working within
> the assumptions of SOM here.

DMB:
> I think SOM in your thinking is stoppping you from
> getting what I am suggesting. ...
> But the thing that really reveals "the possible" as a bunch
> of nonsense is your assertion that "the possible" is
> known in experience. If you imagine the possibility that
> the lion might try to have you for lunch, you have not
> experienced that possibility.

David:
> If you are aware of something you have experienced it.

Here's another example of misunderstood terms causing confusion.  On this
forum, that's a predictable result!

DMB:
> But the thing that really reveals "the possible" as a
> bunch of nonsense is your assertion that "the possible"
> is known in experience. If you imagine the possibility that
> the lion might try to have you for lunch, you have not
> experienced that possibility.

Dmb is right here.  If you imagine being attacked by a lion, it's part of
your awareness -- not your experience.  As I must have said a hundred times,
awareness (proprietary sensibility) includes thoughts, values, images, and
feelings.  What we actualize from our sense of otherness becomes our
experience of physical reality.

David:
> Could there be any intelligence without our knowledge/
> experience of the possible?

Knowledge of the possible is part of our intelligence, but not our
experience.
The possible is our anticipatory awareness that something will happen.  Only
when it happens is it experience.

> Is not the actual created by the possible that becomes
> actual and the possible that is withdrawn and fails to
> become actual?
>
> Call the possible unreal if you like but I would
> say that is SOM rejecting a real experience because
> it is not objectified experience.

Possibility is "unreal" in that it is not a power and doesn't cause or
create anything.  It is only an intellectual construct based on the law of
causality, another human construct.  Ontologically, there must be a source
with the potential to create  the appearance of a relational universe.  You
may choose to call it DQ.  I call it Essence.

DMB:
> To say, as you have above, that this means that
> "the possible" is part of experience is a rather
> transparent rhetorical slight of hand.

Again, I would agree with DMB.

David:
> Is it? Why? I think it is driving some SOM assumptions
> out of typical common SOM forms of thinking.

I shall recuse myself from the rest of this argument because I regard ALL
thinking as S/O.  Good lord, how else do we think if not subjectively?

> The same fallacy is used in your math example too,
> where the predictive equations are actual and part of
> experience even if they are different from the actual
> experiments and actual applications.

DM:
> There is pure math and applied math, of course.
> This is the distinction I am making, real possible
> (with DQ & SQ) versus real actual (with DQ & SQ).

A textbook on mathematics is actual.  A theoretical principle, such as the
law of causation, is an intellectual precept in the mind of an individual.
It may relate to what is possible but it is not actual as in "actualized
existence".

[snip]

DMB:
>  The possible does not exist.

There you go!  The best possible defense of your argument, dmb.  The
possible is anticipating what may be realized as actual.  Once something is
actualized it loses its status as a possibility and becomes an experienced
reality.

I'll cut to the chase.  Despite the DQ interpretations, which are really
irrelevant here, I hereby declare DMB the winner of this debate.

Thanks for inviting me on your jury, Dave.  Better luck next time ;-).

Ham