[MD] Philosophy and Philosophology

[skutvik at online.no]

Hello Ham

2 Aug. 

I had said:
> > To an organism dying of thirst (biology) water
> > is the ultimate good. Good varies according to depth
> > level is MOQ's message.

Ham:
> If Goodness is Quality, and Quality is universal, "depth level" is
> irrelevant.  In that case, what is good should not be the
> interpretation of a biological, social, or intellectual level but
> Goodness itself.  I find the Quality thesis illogical on two counts:
> 1) It posits Quality as the primary metaphysical reality while
> describing it as an evolutionary movement toward betterness, and 2) It
> totally dismisses man's role as evaluator of the Quality.

Sorry, "depth" was a miss, it was supposed to say ".. according to the  
level in question". Maybe it makes your comment irrelevant, yet I kind 
of agree, the Quality as universal is not MOQ's "axiom", rather the 
Dynamic/Static division. SOM does not postulate reality to BE 
anything - before the S/O - so saying it is Quality means nothing. But 
Quality gives direction to existence, hence DQ/SQ

Objection #1. The Dynamic/Static division is an axiom, nothing can 
prove it except its superiority compared to the S/O division. The 
levels are definitely toward "betterness", life is better than death and 
social existence better that the "jungle law" ...etc, but the evolution 
inside each level is more of increasing complexity. The simpler life 
forms are "better" in the sense of being more resilient than the 
complex mammal organism, but the latter was necessary for the 
social level to emerge.   

Objection #2. It's the efforts to include human beings that screws the 
MOQ up, the fact that "man is the measure" is so obvious as to fade 
away. That goes for "man's thoughts" or - in a different guise - "his" 
language. Everything is conveyed by language so include/exclude 
language (like the Quality/Concepts one) is futile. One may postulate 
a time before language - in MOQ's case before the social level - but 
not that the MOQ itself is "mere language" meaning irreal (compared 
to some real Quality.   

> > What we perceive as objects are "objects" and what we perceive
> > as thoughts are "thoughts" ... on the intellectual level.  Intellect
> > is our natural abode, we can't wander around in the high country
> > permanently, but armed with MOQ's knowledge the intellectual
> > existence presents no enigmas.
> 
> It's true that all knowledge is known intellectually, which I suppose
> means "on an intellectual level."  Awareness is more than knowledge,
> however.  It includes feelings, qualia, and desires which are "sensed"
> psycho-emotionally (subjectively) and make human beings value-sensible
> agents.  (Strangely, Pirsig seems to overlook this valuistic component
> of epistemology which is so critical to his Quality concept.)

The knowledge of how to make tools and how to use them in bygone 
ages wasn't intellect, but intelligence,  and yes there is more to 
existence than knowledge, I'm the first to acknowledge feelings and 
desires (emotions) and countless sensations, hunches and quirks. 
That all these things are "subjective" is as obvious as you have to be 
a human being - and possess language - to tell me these things, so all 
this disappears from the picture. Where have you been Ham, it's 
philosophy's vain search for a reality "out there" yet its vanity in 
ridding itself of the S/O that tormented Phaedrus to the point of 
conceiving the MOQ.       

> Perhaps you can get us out of the "high country" by telling us exactly
> what it is that "MOQ's knowledge" arms us with.  I assume it is
> neither hierarchical nor intellectual, since you have distinguished
> such knowledge from "objects", "thoughts" and "levels".  Your answer
> to this question should help me appreciate "the enormous impact the
> MOQ will have on Western philosophy."

I try to return to "normality" - i.e. regard intellect's S/O in its static 
capacity and use language which has been intellect-colored - but am 
constantly driven up in the thin air again by the inputs from various 
participants. The Q context is the level system and above all that the 
4th. level isn't the subjective, but the subject/object cleavage itself. I 
trust you Ham to understand the implications here: "Intellect" seen 
from the intellectual level was the subject, while Q's intellectual level 
is the VALUE of the cleavage. 

Bodvar









   



> 
> Thanks, Bo.
> 
> --Ham
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