[MD] What is the MOQ?

[Ham Priday]

Arlo --


[Andrei Linde, quotesd by Ham]:
> "It's necessary for somebody to look at it.  In the absence of
> observers, our universe is dead."

 [Arlo]:
> So the universe did not exist before "man"? I take it you would say
> that "man" appears "fully formed", like Adam, suddenly and without
> ontogenesis. The moment the eyes of "Adam" opened, the rest of the
> universe suddenly pops into existence?

Methinks we've gone this round before, and if experience has any value as 
knowledge, it tells me that you'll ridicule anything I say.  History repeats 
itself because people keep making the same mistakes, like my trying to talk 
sense with Arlo.  The above quote, by the way, was the statement of a 
distinguished contemporary astrophysicist.

First of all, your terms "fully formed" and "suddenly pops" are 
time-related, but they abuse the way man experiences existence.  Time and 
space are the mode of experiential awareness.  Existence is experienced as 
the continuity of process in time.    Therefore, nothing in existence 
happens instantaneously, least of all organic development, and the belief 
that things will go on as they always have is an intellectual deduction.

This precept is part of what we call "knowledge", and while all knowledge is 
proprietary to the individual subject, much of it is universally shared by 
other subjects.  Since that "affirms" the universal precepts, nobody 
questions the underlying premise (i.e., that objective reality is primary to 
the observer).  We know, however, that many commonly-held assumptions--earth 
is flat, the sun orbits earth, fire is an element, ether fills the void of 
space, for example--have been proved to be false.

I think Pirsig wrote somewhere that experience defines reality.  (Possibly 
one of the MoQists here can locate the quote.)  If he's right, then, as 
Prof. Linde said, in the absence of an observer there is no universe.  Then, 
the universe begins to form as the newborn individual experiences it.  It 
takes on the aspects of dicersity, change, relations, causes/effects, and 
structural order as the child begins to intellectualize his experience. 
 And -- Presto! -- the physical universe comes into existence.  We have all 
the evidence in the world to support this concept, and nothing but 
"intellectual assumptions" to the contrary.

> Also, here you try to consider a "group solipsism", but it doesn't
> hold. By this logic, its not necessary for "somebody" to look at it,
> its necessary for ME to look at it. What evidence do you have, for
> example, that the universe will continue after YOUR death? By
> saying that a Koala bear in deep Australia suddenly exists because
> a bushwacker on walkabout spots it makes no sense. How does it
> exist any more "real" for you then than it did before it was spotted?

Think about it, Arlo.  Is this Koala bear that you've conjured up "real" for 
you?
Is it any more real than Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy?   If you haven't 
experienced something it does not exist in your world.  You can only accept 
it as the experience of somebody else, and you can only "prove" it by 
universal consensus.  Since the Value of the Primary Source is essentially 
the same for all of us, we all experience one universe in common.  Does this 
prove that its existence is primary to experience?  No.  It suggests 
strongly that experiential awareness is primary.  And awareness, like 
intellect, is a property of the "knower".

I can't expect this to make sense to you, Arlo.  But what can you lose by 
pondering on it?.

Regards,
Ham