[MD] Patterns

[MarshaV]

At 03:30 AM 5/11/2008, you wrote:
>Marsha, Magnus, and All --
>
>
>Marsha asked:
> > What is a pattern?
>
>Magnus answered:
> > Anything not DQ.
> > But the only thing these two answers really say is that
> > reality is divided into patterns and non-patterns.
> > What the MoQ has to add to this is that it is the most
> > important division of all possible divisions.
>
>[Marsha]:
> > What can you say about patterns besides 'they are
> > other than DQ'?
>
>Not much.  That's because patterns are said to be "made of" that ephemeral
>stuff called "Quality".  Pure Quality is not a thing, not an object, not a
>subject, but an attribute.  An attribute OF WHAT?   Normally we would think
>of quality as an attribute of a thing or event -- a measure of its 
>worth or of its
>esthetic value relative to the observer.  But not in the MoQ.  There, DQ
>hangs above us like a cornucopia of bonbons, the unrealized source of
>eternal goodness.  Can this be Reality?
>
>But, if Magnus is right that the division of reality into patterns 
>is "the most important
>division of all possible divisions," then it must be fundamental to 
>what we experience as reality.  It must be a division of something 
>intrinsic to both the observing subject and its objective object, a 
>transcendent reality that holds the power to actualize 
>existence.  Marsha's question above provides a three-word key to the 
>nature of this reality: "OTHER THAN DQ".  In reality there is no 
>other; otherness is only what we experience.  What we experience is 
>only a finite moment-to-moment reduction of the ultimate 
>reality.  So that what Pirsig has given us is a Quality-based 
>scenario for experiential existence, not a metaphysical theory of Reality.
>
>Forget about patterns for a moment.  Whatever the fundamental 
>reality is, it cannot be "other than" ANYTHING.  Back in the 15th 
>century the logician Cusanus
>postulated his First Principle as the 'not-other', that ineffable 
>unity "to which
>neither otherness nor multiplicity is opposed".  That uncreated 
>unity, which is manifested only as patterns of beingness, is the 
>essential source of all difference.  What Magnus calls the 
>fundamental "division" and Bo refers to as the "DQ/SQ split" is what 
>I "the negation of Essence".
>
>But, as I've often said, it isn't the terms we use but the concept 
>we're trying to convey that's important.  So, if you understand 
>Pirsig's term "Quality" to mean the primary uncreated not-other, 
>then you can understand what I mean by Essence.  It's the primary 
>source that actualizes 'difference' by splitting or dividing 
>subjective awareness from objective otherness.  Difference creates 
>the dichotomy 'being-aware' which makes experience possible.  It is 
>the Value of Essence (Quality?) that we experientially "pattern" as 
>differentiated otherness.  But although we call these  relational 
>patterns Existence, and experience them as our self's 'other', in 
>Reality there is no other, no pattern, no division, no difference, 
>but only the ineffable unity by whatever name you choose to call it.
>
>Does this give you a better understanding of the Essential ontology 
>and how it differs from the MoQ?
>
>Happy Mother's Day,
>Ham



Greetings Ham,

I am hovering between my fledgling understanding of Buddhist 
epistemology and the MOQ.  I want to drift with the winds aloft for a 
while.  But there has always been in your 'not other' something 
calling for attention.  I find it also in 
'opposite-from-non-(        )'.  Yesterday morning it was 
'opposite-from-non-life'.  There was little room for doubt.  Even 
though I find the Eastern philosophies more compatible with my 
thinking, I am looking forward to returning to your book.  There is a 
relationship between the two.  Maybe.  Well, I am curious.

Thank you for the Mother's Day greeting.

Marsha






Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars...