[MD] The SOM/MOQ discrepancy.

[Ham Priday]

Kieffer --



> But your metaphysics of Essence, 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.

Not only is history "stored in our brains", it is CREATED by our brains. 
(That's what the word "actualized" refers to.)  We actualize the physical 
world of objects and events in space/time from our value sensibility.  But 
objects changing in time is not Reality.  It's the appearance of a 
relational universe of which we are the locus.
If you want to describe the experiential world as a chronology of events, it 
is well documented in the annals of Science.  That is the objectivist (i.e., 
SOMist view) that Pirsig exhorts us to reject.  Therefore, why should I have 
to explain it to Arlo, of all people, who doesn't accept a primary source, 
proprietary consciousness, or Value as man's realization of a transcendent 
Reality?

> 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.

The passage of time doesn't create anything.  Cause-and-effect is the 
intellectual precept by which we make sense of our differentiated 
experience, so it's our "creation" too.  I define the being-aware as 
proprietary value-sensibility.  It accounts for our experience of a 
differentiated world.  Like Pirsig's Quality, the Value of Essence is the 
fundamental ground of existence (beingness).  It is man who differentiates 
Value into the appearance of an evolving universe and all the things in it.

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

There is nothing to say about evolution and emergence except that it is the 
finite, relational experience of human beings.  I'm not trying the reinvent 
the wheel.  My ontology isn't about science or anthropology.  It's a 
metaphysics of Ultimate Reality -- that unknown essence which is outside of 
Pirsig's "static quality" box.

> 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.

I disagree.  The self is not an illusion, but its experience is.  Please 
don't confuse Essentialism with Creationism, Kieffer.  The latter is just as 
much a "chronology of events" as is Darwinism or the Big Bang theory, only 
with a Divine Being calling the shots.  We have to get beyond this "before & 
after" illusion if we expect to grasp the truth of creation.  What IS is 
absolutely.  Nothing in existence is absolute, so the ultimate source of 
reality cannot be the preceived property of an existent.

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

In what sense are you using the word "quality" here?  Do you mean "high 
quality" or a quality source?  Quality must be realized.  It's a human 
assessment of something experienced.  There is no quality in the absence of 
an observer.  In other words, quality is a psycho-emotional or intellectual 
response to that which lies beyond us.  Quality (Value) is the metaphysical 
"object" of individual awareness.  It's what we convert into physical 
objects.  But, again, Value differentiated (actualized) as finite objects is 
not the absolute source.

> Then where is the utility of your metaphysics?

Metaphysics is not a "utility" like a power company or the laws of energy 
conservation.  Rather, it's a concept of reality.  HOW you "use" it depends 
on what meaning you glean from it and what affect it has on your life 
experience.  What utility do you think religion, mysticism, or spiritualism 
has?  Essentialism serves the same purpose for those who adopt it as their 
belief system.

I hope this helps to clarify your problems with my philosophy, Kieffer.  But 
even if it doesn't, I wish you all the joys of Christmas (or the Solstice, 
should you be of Arlo's persuasion).

Essentially yours,
Ham