[MD] Tit's

[Ham Priday]

Marsha --

> Both the designs and the designer are conceptually constructed.
> Both are patterns.  I don't see a problem with the MOQ.

To see the problem you have to go back to the fundamentals.

Remember the 'ex nihilo' principle?  You say the designs and the designer 
are "conceptually constructed".  "Conceptually" is an adverb that describes 
conception as the configuring process of the intellect.  Anything 
constructed is a "creation", and creation implies a Creator.

I assume you agree that objects are intellectual patterns,  If so, they are 
constructed FROM value, not BY value.  Since construction is not an agent 
but a process, who or what is the constructive agent?   As an MoQist, you 
will probably answer that Intellect is the agent.  And that's precisely 
where the problem lies.  For "intellect" is not a disembodied agency and 
"value" is not a universal principle.  Both are functions of the individual 
observer.  In the absence of an observer, there is no value realized and no 
intellect to configure it.

Back on July 7 you told me that "self is a collection of interrelated, 
ever-changing,
static patterns of inorganic, biological, social and intellectual values." 
By that definition the self is a construction of its objective experiences. 
Maybe that's literally how you view it.  In any event, it's how Pirsig would 
like you to view it, since he seeks to "overcome" selfness in the monistic 
existentiality of DQ.

Here's where I part with the Quality thesis.  Individuality and separateness 
are essential to value realization.  All experience is proprietary to the 
self, selves are individuated from each other, and experiential existence is 
a differentiated system.
I'm quite aware that this is regarded as an unenlightened SOMist view.  But 
it is the reality human beings are designed to experience and participate 
in.  Why?  Because (metaphysically) it is the only way value can be realized 
relationally, and (morally) it affords the individual free choice, which is 
the purpose of being-aware in a relational universe.

But I don't stop here.  Unlike Pirsig, I don't exclude metaphysical reality 
from this differentiated ontology.  I posit Essence as the "unmoved mover" 
and primary source of all difference, and nothingness as the actualizing 
agent of existence.  You and I are negated "others" of an absolute reality 
whose essential value absorbs us into its oneness.  Take hold of this value, 
Marsha.  Seize the Essence!  It's all up for grabs in this process we call 
the life-experience.

Essentially yours,
Ham