[MD] Philosophy and Philosophology

[Ham Priday]

Hey, Bo --


Responding to my criticisms of the Quality thesis, you wrote on 8/6/09:

> 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.

In ZAMM Pirsig says that "Quality is the primary empirical reality of the 
world."  I take his use of "the world" to mean reality.  If quality is the 
primary reality, and it equates to Morality, then the quality of morality is 
not stained.  For a Universal Good to include evil, pain, and dysfrunction 
is self-contradictory.  Since these immoral conditions exist in the 
universe, which is experienced as a balance of goodness and badness, Quality 
(Morality) cannot be universal.  Where, then, do these "negatives" come 
from?  Are we to conclude, as the biblical scribes did, that evil is the 
work of the Devil and that all men are born sinners?  Or, is it your 
interpretation that the "intellectual division of DQ/SQ" creates it?

> 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.

What "proves the superiority of DQ to S/O" except for our preference of it? 
How is man, a finite and imperfect being of limited wisdom, to know for a 
certainty that Goodness is better than Badness?   Perhaps evil serves a 
cosmic purpose.  Perhaps experiencing pain and disease has an 
"instructional" value that we are unaware of.   Also, having studied 
biology, I'm curious to know what evidence you have for asserting that 
simpler life forms are "more resilient" than complex mammals.  (I've seen no 
scientific support for it.)

> 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.

You and Pirsig would exclude human beings from the MoQ, giving metaphysical 
credence only to his LANGUAGE?!  You suggest that before thoughts were 
conveyed in language, there were no societies and (according to your logic) 
no human beings, either.  Come to your senses, Bo.  What kind of philosophy 
is that?

> 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.

Rejecting S/O duality is not only vain, it's illogical.  But not quite so 
illogical as the ontology that is supposed to replace it.  If, as I 
maintain, quality and value are subjective appraisals of experience, their 
existence is dependent on human sensibility.  In other words, value cannot 
be the primary reality; it must be derived from some more fundamental source 
(unnamed in the MoQ).  Need I remind you that Essence is the metaphysical 
foundation of Essentialism?

[Ham, previously]:
> 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."

[Bo]:
> 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.

Your trust may be misplaced, Bo.  I fail to see how a "cleavage" can be 
"above all" that the Quality reality represents, unless Intellect is the 
primary reality.  This I cannot accept, because intellect is a function of 
human intelligence.  Whatever is posited as the primary source must be 'sui 
generis' or "uncreated" and independent of human existence.  Again, I refer 
you to the Philosophy of Essence.

I leave you with these axioms:

-- Existence represents differentially what Essence is absolutely.

-- Essence is negational (negates nothingness) so that existence can be 
actualized.

-- The primary difference is the Self/Other dichotomy.

-- Each self realizes the Value of Otherness from a relational 
perspective -- its unique valuistic     sensibility of beingness.

-- In this worldview, neither the conscious subject nor its valuistic 
objects are essential.
Space/time existence, the finite world of appearances, is negated (derived) 
from the One Absolute Source.

Thanks, Bo

Essentially yours,
Ham