[MD] [MD} The SOM/MOQ discrepancy

[Ham Priday]

Craig --

This message appears to have been posted following you response to my most 
recent one, although it is a response to my earlier post of 12/4 in which I 
said:

"Only a sensible agent can realize Value, and neither subject nor object
could exist in the absence of a non-relational source."

> This is where we differ Ham, the MoQ suggests that Value
> realises the 'agent' and it is after that point that subjects and
> objects are deduced to 'exist'.

I don't understand what you mean by "Value realizes the agent".  Since an 
agent is an active, responsible cause (in this case, of actualizing being 
from Value), it seems that you've stated the subject and predicate in 
reverse.  Are you suggesting that value is a cognitive entity with the 
sensibility to realize and the intellect to "deduce"?  If so, why bother to 
create a complex self-aware creature with a proprietary sense of value and 
the capacity to reason?  If Value is the Creator, wouldn't it be more 
efficacious and sensible to simply work with the patterns themselves?

> Whilst I am on this, I suggested the MoQ was a sort of allegory,
> which you found not really very philosophical/metaphysical.
> I agree but: 'The One can only be described allegorically...
> Socrates uses a  heaven-and-earth analogy...'.( ZMM p381).
> Pirsig uses the DQ/SQ analogy to describe how static patterns
> of value are drawn toward the One. He has presented us a
> metaphysics set in the form of a novel.Brilliant!!

The allegory of Pirsig's novel may be "brilliant", but does it make 
metaphysical sense?  For me, man is perfectly equipped to be the agent of 
value.  He is an independent entity endowed with an exquisite sense of value 
from which, by experience and intellection, he constructs a world of 
beingness in time and space.  He is able to manipulate the constituents of 
this environment to his advantage and communicate with others of his species 
to develop and maintain a value-based moral culture.  We don't think of man 
as a complex arrangement of synapses and neurons in the brain giving rise to 
the illusion of self.  Does it make better sense to reduce the human being 
to "static patterns of value drawn toward the One"?

> [T]hink of it this way: we, as static PoV's, responsive (or not)
> to DQ are all in the process of writing our own novels and one
> of the most beautiful examples of this is Marcel Proust's
> 'A La Cherch du Temps Perdu' (I do not know if you have
> read it, Ham but I highly recommend it).

No, I haven't read Proust's massive novel, and I'd have diffiiculty 
identifying myself with this author's life style.  (But I will keep your 
recommendation in mind.)

Since you have indicated interest in continuing this conversation, despite 
our differences, you're free to lead the discussion at your pleasure.

Thanks, Andre.

Ham