[MD] The Essentials of the MOQ, part 2

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Ham

Here follows part 2:

You had said:
> If you're implying that words are useless, why are we talking? 
> Language is only the tool of social communication -- certainly not the
> ground of existence.  Subjective awareness isn't the ground of
> existence, either, but it's the sensible locus of experience which
> defines it.

I merely pointed to language as IT ALL and as such it must be 
suspended. I challenge you to show me a reality outside of 
language. And if so language must either recede from the scene 
or a language metaphysics must be established. Language as a 
social tool is correct, but only possible inside the MOQ where there 
is a social level.      

> The way I see it, Value is what stands between subject and object,
> alternately attracting or repelling the subjective psyche, depending
> on the subject's value-sensibility.  What we seek and what we avoid in
> existence really has little to do with intellect.

When you - who reject the level tenet - speak about intellect it's not 
the 4th level, but SOM's subject who monitors what goes on 
outside ourselves (it can even direct its attention to its own 
thoughts) What role "value" plays in this scenario may be as you 
say, but it has little to do with MOQ's 4th. level whose very VALUE 
is this subject/object split. 

> It's our differentiated psycho-emotional relationship to otherness (in
> my ontology, the Value of Essence).  Being-aware is what we ARE, and
> Value is the essence of this interdependency. ... That's how we
> become individuated beings who differentiate. Value into the multifold
> objects of our experiential reality. 

The MOQ's idea is that before the 4th. level (when the social level 
was "leading edge") there were no S/O distinctions and you don't 
find much talk about  ... "being-aware is what we ARE ...etc. in  the 
few ancient (pre-intellect) texts there are. In Homer's "Iliad" for 
instance you won't find any references to awareness, thoughts, 
ideas, my opinion ...and such, it's all emotions, about fury and 
courage and semi-gods with fantastic qualities, but these aren't 
said to me supernatural, this hasn't yet come to be. 

In this case you are forced to deem the ancient people to be 
ignorant of the true S/O context. Not so with the MOQ, they were 
as intelligent as ourselves only their premises were the 3rd. level's. 
With the Greek thinkers the intellectual premises slowly emerged 
and began their march to power and now Ham Priday is dead sure 
that these are the last word.   


Ham on Essentialism:

> Well, Bo, thus far I've avoided bringing it up because you didn't want
> to discuss it, but Essentialism is a new metaphysics.  I don't call it
> a "subject" metaphysics, although it is definitely more subjective than
> objective.  It posits Sensibility and Being as One in Essence, and it
> is based on Cusa's first principle which is the "coincidence of
> contrariety". Existence is the actualized or "differentiated mode" of
> Essence. 

It isn't new, it's SOM's subjective side coming to the fore, and as 
said, from its premises the subjective side has the stronger hand 
and I would have been "your man" had I not known the MOQ. 

> I suspect we agree on more than either of us admits.  These statements
> are most revealing.  Perhaps you will explain for me how you
> distinguish "dynamic" from "static" in the context of values.  Are they
> meant to infer "transcendent" or "non-transcendent", differentiated or
> non-differentiated, or simply definable versus undefinable?  

Thanks for asking. The dynamic/static relationship is best 
visualized by the ocean/wave metaphor. The static levels are 
water too, but it's the wave form as different from the surface it 
rises above that matters. The inorganic level may be likened to a 
gigantic swell, with the biological a smaller - yet big - wave on top 
of it and so on upwards. 

"Transcendent" indicates some otherworldly quality, the upper 
level surely transcends the lower, but not in the said sense, they 
are of water too. 

"Differentiated"? Absolutely, but with the same qualification of 
being water. 

"Definable versus undefinable". Yes, that's the point, only the 
waves have form, the ocean is formless. 

I know this indicates an observer, not least regarding the MOQ 
which sees it all from above, but one can't avoid - I guess it's - 
Godel's Theorem. Your Essentialims will also at some point 
encounter it.                 

> I've never asked before, and these labels have always puzzled me,
> especially as I regard Essence as immutable and unchanging, whereas
> existence is evolutionary and transitory or provisional. 

Yes, DQ is immutable and unchanging and with and the same 
static essence levels you'd have a winner, a MOE.
 
> Thanks, Bo.  Once again I deceive myself into thinking we are making
> progress.

We do make progress. An exchange like this would have been 
impossible a year ago (I forgot when you joined) your criticism of 
the MOQ is more worth than many ..... enough said!   

Bo