[MD] The Quest for Quality

[Ham Priday]

Hi Bo --


[Ham, previously]:
> Well, there's intelligent thought, intuitive thought, creative
> thought, and stupid thought, I suppose.  Where you draw the
> "intellectual" line isn't particularly significant to me, as long as
> you acknowledge that it is the individual who does the thinking..

[Bo]:
> OK, the individual does the thinking, that's pretty obvious in the
> thought/world reality (AKA SOM) OK, I know that you reject
> any way of transcending it but wait.

I reject very little, but I am discriminating in what I accept ;-). 
Selfness is not the way to Essence but its value-awareness is.  Since Value 
is derived from Essence, it is essentially indestructible.  In that sense, 
Value is the "transcendent" aspect of being-aware.   I suspect that you'll 
now try to persuade me that Intellect is transcendent.

> Protagoras and his fellow Sophists was part of the New Age
> (intellect or SOM) that had been brewing long before Socrates,
> Plato & Co. thus that of Man (to become "mind" or "subject")
> as everything's source (in contrast to the old myth age where
> such an approach was unknown) was already established.
> And from THOSE premises humankind is the "cutting edge".
> I refrain from the Quality terminology at this stage.*

This scenario is somewhat difficult to follow in a two-sentence exposition. 
If you're  saying that humans realized their intellectual capability before 
Socrates, there can be no dispute about that.  However, I don't think 
Plato's idealism was founded on the idea that man "becomes 'mind'"; rather, 
it was that "things are ideas (essences)" perceived by man.

[Ham, previously]:
> Aside from the fact that Value (valuism) is a more comprehensible
> derivative of Essence than Quality (qualityism), I have a problem with
> either term posited as the pimary source.  I view Difference, not
> Quality or Value, as the "causative" factor of existence, and this may
> be a stumbling block in our discussion.

[Bo]:
> No stumbling block in OUR discussion, I have long since pointed out
> that Quality in itself says nothing, the basic difference is DQ/SQ. I
> guess yours is Sensibility/Otherness. And here is the crux. This is
> SOM in a MOQ context, and you maintain that this can't be
> transcended, it's given, as existence IS!  Is this a way of seeing it that
> you can accept?

I don't accept Quality as primary, so a split from "dynamic" into "static" 
isn't meaningful.  to me.  The fundamental split (i.e., primary division) is 
between the absolute whole (Essence) and the experience of finitude 
(differentiated beingness).  Yes, existence IS by definition.  It's a given 
that being is.  It's what we're aware of and what our universe is made of. 
But space/time existence is not ultimate reality, it is only the appearance 
(to a subject) of that reality.  Essence transcends finitude.  And, because 
it is not an existent, technically, Essence cannot be said to exist. That is 
my understanding, Bo.

> This is slow going but I must find some common ground before
> proceeding.

I appreciate the difficulty and your willingness to bear with me on the 
fundamentals.  Do you now begin to understand the ontology I'm proposing? 
If you would be so kind as to
expand a bit on your statement (asterisked above), I might begin to 
comprehend yours.

Thanks for your patience, Bo.

--Ham