[MD] The SOM/MOQ discrepancy.

[kieffer odigaunt]

Hello Ham, you disappoint me.


2008/12/23 Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net>

>
> 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.


I agree; is your source/essence conscious of itself? Is it not that your
essence is what really does the creating and man is merely a conduit for the
will of the source? Is your source the equivalent of a god?


> (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.


A separate reality outside of history or change/karma?


> 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.


You like Pirsig! Is your little creator man inside my head?


> 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?


Did your creator know the consequences of his actions when he set into
motion the unfolding of the universe?


>  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.  \


Time is change.


> Cause-and-effect is the intellectual precept by which we make sense of our
> differentiated experience, so it's our "creation" too.


No, it makes the sense too.


> I define the being-aware as proprietary value-sensibility.


No, being/awareness is the result of 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).


You do like Pirsig! But my take on Pirsig is that unlike your theory, there
is no outside agency - essense - outside of quality.


>  It is man who differentiates Value into the appearance of an evolving
> universe and all the things in it.
>

Yeah, right on!


> 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.
>

OK, but that Dynamic Quality is constantly shifting; it IS change;
constantly differentiatiing and reintegrating to produce the effect we call
consciousness.


 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.


So if nothing can be absolute, with which i agree, then neither can your
source. Human consciousness is an affect of change, not the source of
change. We cannot DO. We can only choose to interfere less.


> 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?


I think high quality.


> Quality must be realized.  It's a human assessment of something
> experienced.


It IS the experience.


>  There is no quality in the absence of an observer.


There was a big change in perception of quality when the first forms of life
appeared on the planet, a quantum jump in it after the vertabrates appeared
but the most massive jump comes with the human.


>  In other words, quality is a psycho-emotional or intellectual response to
> that which lies beyond us.


No, psycho-physical in the case of man and, to a lesser extent certain other
animals, but plants for instance we dont attach a pysche to, nevertheless
they appear to respond to what goes on around them.


> Quality (Value) is the metaphysical "object" of individual awareness.


No, it is the whole shabang.


> It's what we convert into physical objects.  But, again, Value
> differentiated (actualized) as finite objects is not the absolute source.
>

Right, there is no source.


> Then where is the utility of your metaphysics?
>

Metaphysics is not a "utility" like a power company or the laws of energy
> conservation.


Yes it is - its purpose is to make sense of existence. Without a use it is
pointless.


> 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.


To be more discriminating and less caught up in the idea that we can control
what happens is all we can do - the rest just happens.


> What utility do you think religion, mysticism, or spiritualism has?
>  Essentialism serves the same purpose for those who adopt it as their belief
> system.
>

But in the case of your own essentialism you never suggest how.

>
> I hope this helps to clarify your problems with my philosophy, Kieffer.


I agree with some things you say, but for me you have it back to front - i
dont accept a conscious creator.


> But even if it doesn't, I wish you all the joys of Christmas (or the
> Solstice, should you be of Arlo's persuasion).
>
> I'm happy with Yule-tide.

-KO