[MD] MOQ's "to be or not to be"

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Platt 

13 Dec. you wrote:

> Thanks for the mention. Perhaps what I'm missing is the monistic nature
> of the MOQ, i.e., the central idea that 1) there is no actual split in
> reality between subject and object even though we usually live as if
> there is, 

Thank you, I didn't believe my posts were read except (perhaps) by the 
addressee.

Intellect's S/O in its true role as MOQ's 4th. level only goes to the 
depth where the social level starts to show. However, regarding your 
"...we usually live as if there is [a SOM]". We are all levels and 
intellect's (lower-case) subject/object separation, society's you/I 
separation, biology's self/not self separation are all most valuable. 
What really causes trouble is intellect's SOM role, one aspect is its 
over-control of the social level (the social nightmare) even worse is its 
existential oppression",  the dead material world infinitey separated 
from our subjective secondhand perception of it.         

> and 2) that this Oneness of reality (Northingness, Absolute, Being,
> Essence, Allah, God, etc) is Quality, the immediate, intuitive, 
> involuntary direct  value experience. (I was about to write "experience
> of value" but that introduces the deceptive duality-assuming word, "of"
> as in "The object of my affections.") 

Quality is one because the static levels are levels of quality (the ocean 
waves analogy), however the static hierarchy is our world. Since you 
mention the various grand entities I think the MOQ may be compared 
to religions (the social level) where the world is a manifestation of a 
greater context,  the God/World distinction isn't fundamental.       

> In the Baggini papers I found this from Pirsig:
 
> "You are correct in saying that the revolutionary assertion of the
> Metaphysics of Quality is that "Quality' or "value" is the
> fundamental constituent of the universe. However, the classification
> of metaphysics into monism, dualism and pluralism, seems to me to be
> an arbitrary classification where none is needed. The Metaphysics of
> Quality is all three: Quality is the monism. Static quality and
> Dynamic Quality are the dualism, and the four levels of static
> quality contain a pluralism of things."
 
Wonder if the Baggini paper contains anything of interest for the 
"bones" we have had. Well I may read it myself.  

> Here we see the beauty of the MOQ. It covers all the philosophical
> bases. And now I see that my error in attempting to reconcile the
> intellectual level with the MOQ was to see it only from the
> static/Dynamic split. But, I have an excuse. Our language, the means
> by which we find and communicate meaning, passionately embraces the
> subject/object division, so passionately in fact that we can only
> escape its grip with colossal effort. 

I agree. Our intelligence has till now run the 4th level's program - at 
least on its outermost "shell", there are lower ones that serves the 
lower levels. However I don't really think language itself must be 
modified, we may speak about mind and matter and all S/O dualisms 
while MOQ's program running as the top program.   

> What's more, the effort hardly seems to have much value since the
> assumption of a threatening environment "out there" (Ex: global
> warming) gets us pellets (if you are Al Gore, millions of pellets). 

Pellets? I haven't heard about that, but the climate issue has now 
reached hysteria proportions. My only comfort is that they can't cry wolf 
very long before it loses its effect. 

> Anyway, I wonder if the valuistic non-dual mode is what you believe
> to be the MOQ's key virtue. Or have I mussed your point again?

The MOQ's attraction for me is still that of debunking SOM and why I 
see it so terribly important to know what SOM is and where it is located 
in the static hierarchy were it - stripped of its "M" - can exercise it 
undeniably great value. Why I don't like the latter-day Pirsig's on SOM 
no longer of interest and that "warning of crocs" were ancient "som" 
...etc.    

Bodvar