[MD] The SOM/MOQ discrepancy

[Andre Broersen]

Ham:

I don't understand what you mean by "Value realizes the agent".

Hi Ham, this wasn't from Craig but from Andre;

I tried to use the language you used to clarify my point but obviously this
didn't work. I'll use my own (MoQ)  language: value causes the subject and
object, not the other way around.

Ham:
Are you suggesting that value is a cognitive entity with the
sensibility to realize and the intellect to "deduce"?

Andre;
No! Value may be realised (there is no coercion), and the more we do so the
better.

Ham:
If Value is the Creator...

Andre:
It is not... it is....

Ham:
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"?

Andre:

You seem to me to believe in the creationist theory.
Vacuum,energy,photon,proton,molecules,organisms...Man! We are these patterns
Ham whether you like it or not. These patterns combining within DQ/SQ,
static latching, emergent property (I like this concept) and here we are!
No kidding, we do not realise how special and lucky we are. We are inorganic
SPOV's  become conscious (emergent property principle??) as the free-est
manifestation of this dynamic, evolutionary process to date.

Yes, we are conscious being-time.
We can adapt as no other static PoV can. We can create/destroy,
reflect,criticise,explore, learn etc , etc. We all have this ability. Our
only restriction being our need/desire to cling to static patterns.

Why are we here?
According to the MoQ one examines the pronoun 'we'...this 'selfappointed
little editor of reality' which 'collapses the moment one examines it' (Lila
p 204). This whole notion of 'awareness', consciousness', 'essence'
whatever,  is a piece of 'software reality, not a hardware reality'.'We'
have 'invaded' these 'poor stupid bodies' leaving 'we' mystified about how
all this could have happened'(Lila p 205).
We are all these patterns, but not only these patterns: We are DQ/SQ, in our
own 'reality'-time' our own Being-time...a moment.

The more oil we slurp out of our bodies, the more coal we burn from our
bones, the more ways we find to exploit our world, the more masturbatory it
becomes. And while both the poles are melting, the more we need to go to the
toilet.
This incessant SOM drive for economic (biological) satisfaction so that
(intellectually) we find our 'selves'...our 'essence' in the objects we
create, in our posessions (cars, houses, children, work,wives, where we go
on holidays,concubines, what intellectual books we have read lately, what
plays we have seen lately) and what we can afford to eat.

The reasoning responsible for acid rain, killing thousands of hectares of
forests.The polluted wastes in the sea, land and air ready to contaminate us
for the next 250.000 years ( atomic energy) so we can go on going to the
toilet and continue to 'find' our  'selves' ...our 'essence'.

Is this the sort of world you want to leave our children? You said you are a
selfconfessed SOM'st. Well, this is SOM reasoning and its resultant effects
and consequences.
The Essence really is to find a balance between DQ and SQ. SOM is hopelessly
inadequate and incompetent.
The MoQ is better. Why? Because it is Morality.

And, just because you do not agree with an author's lifestyle does that ipso
facto mean his works are of low quality?

For what it has been worth Ham.
Andre