[MD] What all is about.

[Ham Priday]

Hi Bo, and Greetings Peter --


Let's get this Bicameral Mind theory out of the way first, because it's a 
speculative anthropological hypothesis by a psychologist that really doesn't 
add anything to the Ontology of All which we are discussing.

Peter helped me understand what you meant by Muslims being "latter day 
social level people".

[Peter]:
> You refer to the Muslim world as a social level culture that has
> not adopted intellect as it's focus.  This is a touchy subject and
> you are brave to say that.  I'm not sure you are right though your
> words certainly resonate. The Muslim world has produced
> fantastic architecture and art over the centuries and, of course,
> they have given much to mathematics also; all of these require intellect.
> I am not a Muslim but my impression of their way of life is one of very
> strong social pressures where it is barely possible to even consider
> that Allah may be a myth as that in itself would be enough to guarantee
> your oblivion; they could argue with the non-believer but never really
> consider their point of view.
>
> It's a growing force, a true giant; I hear of Westerners converting
> to Islam but I never heard of an ex-Muslim.

Salman Rushdie, Walid Shoebat, and Hirsi Ali are all ex-Muslims, and the 
latter is now a self-professed atheist.  Personally, I don't see any 
significant difference in the thought process of a Christian fundamentalist 
and that of a Muslim.  Both hold their Divine Being to be the Rule-Maker and 
ultimate master of the world, however "intellectual" this belief system may 
be regarded by the rest of humanity.  If we follow the logic of your 
argument, nihilism represents a higher or "more evolved" intellectual 
development than theism, and I think that's a hypocritical conclusion.

What distinguishes religion from philosophy is that the believer is 
committed to canonic law, either willfully or by the moral compulsion of his 
culture, thereby excluding the possibility of free thought.  The 
intellectual "handicap" here is not some biogenetic deficiency or 
anthropological stagnation; it is a value decision by the believer, not a 
lack of intellect on his part.  We tend to forget that intellectual giants 
like Augustine, Eckhart, and Aquinas formulated their ontologies at the 
height of the Christian epoch.

[Bo]:
> But at times you sound like an Old Peoples' Home inmate
> repeating things regardless of your room mate's argument. And
> can anything be said without "transcending the individual", i.e.
> assuming that there is a reality greater than individual who
> speaks about it? Even in SOM this is impossible.

Verbal communication is not "transcending the individual".  We can share our 
thoughts with others, but we can't share our value sensibilities with them. 
Value sensibility is proprietary to individual awareness and is 
non-transferable.

> The SO dichotomy may be paradoxical, bit it's a dilemma only for those
> who insist on an existential reality.  Quality is not alone in being
> exclusively neither mind nor matter; this is also true of Freedom,
> Excellence, Beauty, Love, Balance, Goodness, Integrity, Harmony,
> Symmetry, Magnificence, and dozens of other attributions, even
> Consciousness itself.  Must we regard them all as Quality?

[Bo]:
> ...Pirsig's point is that existence is an evolution towards the better
> and in that sense Quality is BEST. I combine Quality and D/S by
> seeing the DQ/DQ  as MOQ's first postulate.

What does DQ/DQ represent?  If the slash is intended as a division, it would 
signify Quality divided by itself.  By mathematical law, anything divided by 
itself is unity.  How does unity gives us diversity?  A "first postulate" or 
primary principle should logically be the causal source or progenitor of 
difference.  In my philosophy the source is absolute Essence.  The 
appearance of diversity (actualized Existence) is a perceived reduction of 
the primary source.

[Bo]:
> More valid points. There are several concepts that escape the
> S/O matrix, and as a veteran of this site you will remember how
> many MO -Xs that have been proposed, but as all just copies the
> MOQ Quality is the mother of them all.
[skip]
> P. had not spotted the SOM at this time - not to speak of
> formulating a MOQ - he sees "scientific thought" as his
> antagonist and his task to be that of uniting science and art.

That's an interesting analysis of Pirsig's strategy.  It does seem to 
describe what the author set out to do in his SODV presentation and novels, 
although I'm not sure that it qualifies as philosophy.  Assuming you are 
right, and that science and art can be unified, how does this lead to a 
metaphysics, let alone a morality system?

[Bo]:
> If SOM poses no problem why bother, but you seem like having
> passed all philosophy by since Aristotles. The empiricists,
> Berkeley who found that "everything exists in our mind only".
> Immanuel Kant who believed he came to common sense's
> rescue (that there is a S/O, not only S) but ended with postulating
> a reality (Das Ding an Sich) out there, completely ineffable.
> Modern physics still worse solipsisms.[??]   Is this no problem?

Differentiated existence is enigmatic (without a transcendent metaphysics to 
explain it), but it needn't be a problem if we acknowledge existence as a 
reduced, finite perspective of ultimate reality.  The MoQ does not seem to 
allow for relational perspective.  Instead it rejects the "knower" and 
relegates what is known (intelligence, knowledge) to a supra-human realm 
that exists without distinctions.  If reality is empirical, a subject is 
required to experience it.  With no SO distinction, you kill empirical 
reality.  This is why I maintain that the MoQ is existentialist 
pantheism--minus the theism.  The fallacy, in my opinion, is the idea that 
Quality can stand alone, apart from a conscious observer.

[Bo]:
> It's all this that gives the MOQ its enormous explanatory power
> and leaves SOM behind in its paradoxical dust. But if your sole
> mission is to say "no" to it all ...phew. I'm not asking you to leave
> dear Ham, you philosophize at least.

Dear Bo, I'm most certainly not saying "no" to all.  I'm saying that 
Existence is a self/other dichotomy.  If there is no sensibility, no 
cognizant awareness, there is no empirical reality.  My premise is as simple 
as that.  The philosopher must look beyond empirical otherness for its (and 
our) ultimate source.

--Ham