[MD] The SOM/MOQ discrepancy.

[kieffer odigaunt]

Hi Ham,


2008/12/22 Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net>

>
> Greetings, Kieffer --
>
>
> About Arlo's assertions . . .
>
> On 12/11 Arlo wrote:
>
>> Ham has said that at some point in the historical timeline, call it
>> Point Alpha, there were primates that did NOT have consciousness.
>> Then, at a later point, call it Point Beta, there were primates that
>> DID have consciousness.
>>
>> Perhaps Ham would care to explain the process by which the
>> consciousness of those at Point Alpha "evolved" into the greater
>> consciousness we see at Point Beta?
>>
>
> You responded:
>
>> To some extent (that is with some qualification) I can agree with his
>> statement, first being: the effect we refer to as consciousness
>>
>
> For the record, I never said such a thing.  Arlo, who is obsessed with
> historical explanations, insisted that I accept an anthropological timeline
> of man's development.



OK Ham, i butted in on you and Arlo, and you think Arlo has paraphrased you
wrongly - but are you saying that you do not accept the timeline of man's
development?

Arlo came up with the alpha and beta points, and he is the one who needs to
> justify Consciousness as a biological event.  Quite naturally, as you seem
> to understand, I do not care to reduce metaphysics to the human experience
> of changing events in time.  As you noted, "Ham could only explain this by
> falling back on to Darwin."  And that is exactly what I told him.


But your metaphysics of Essense, like any other, is necessarily a model of
the principles of reality, history is stored in our brains, history is part
of reality and therefor so is mans timeline - your metaphysics must be able
to account for it otherwise it is incomplete.

The fact that man's experience of reality is sequential does not prove that
> consciousness or value is a product of cause-and-effect.


We are conscious OF value, they are not the same, nevertheless they are both
ultimately the indirect product of cause and effect or the forward passage
of time.


>   To claim so is to dismiss the ontogeny that is implicit in Essentialism
> and also (I believe) in Pirsig's Quality thesis.


In your essentialism yes, but yours cannot have anything to say about the
gradual arising of the mind of man.


> Neither conscious awareness nor the Value it actualizes is an 'existent'.


Consciousness actualises value? Not happy about the word 'actualises'; we
dont percieve them as existents but if the brain brain informs consciousness
and value and the brain exists.

Creation is not a sequence of events chronicled by a timeline;


Creationism is non-pragmatic and is the result of the illusion of the self
as an etherial entity that will survive after death. It is absolute SOM.


> it is the ever-present Sensibility/Otherness dichotomy from which
> being-aware is derived.  So those who ask "Which came first, the chicken or
> the egg?" questions are much more 'SOMist' than yours truly.
>

In a metaphysical sense 'I' creates.That metaphyiscs is one of quality.


>
> As far as teleology is concerned, only the likes of Arlo could twist it
> into an apologist's argument for theism:


Then where is the utility of your metaphysics?


> [Arlo]:
>
>> Ham also claims we were "intended" to be here, that is man was
>> created by a Source that wanted something to "perceive its
>> magnificence".
>> While such a needy-Source would do better creating therapists
>> than adulators, it certainly demonstrates a theistic approach.
>>
>
> [Kieffer]:
>
>> Again, without any nit-picking, I, and I think you also, agree
>> with this statement.
>>
>
> What Arlo doesn't understand is that ALL Value is our perception of the
> essential Source.  It is finite Man who "needs" to relate to Essence, for
> without Essence he is literally nothing.
>
> Thanks for showing some understanding, Kieffer, and have a Merry Christmas.
>

I think you have messed up the timeline of the conversation with these last
snippets, but whatever has been said Ham, i hope you have a happy Yuletide.

-KO