[MD] The Essentials of the MOQ, part 2

[Ham Priday]

Ahoy, Bo --



> 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 that
> 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.

This semiotic notion of reality, which you confuse with Intellect, is the 
least intellectual of any philosophy I have come across.  If there is no 
reality but language, we are about as meaningful as a dictionary on the 
shelf.  Who do you suppose invented language anyway?  I would rather that 
you were a pure objectivist than advance such an ontology.

> 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.

My dear Bo, "intellect" is only the human capacity for processing 
intelligence, whether applied to the mental functions of an individual or 
the historical record of collective thought.  It's a "lifeless" word akin to 
"dialectic" or "logic" in philosophy, and it bears little resemblance to 
proprietary consciousness or sensibility which is the psychic core of 
experience.  I'm constantly amazed at how readily you folks dismiss the most 
fundamental and self-evident reality in life -- subjective awareness!

> 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. ...

No, I am not.  I see that Krimel commented on this "evolutionary emergence" 
hypothesis before I got to it.  He makes a good point.  The archaic phrase 
"My heart was black with rage" was the ancient Greeks' way of expressing the 
hateful state of their conscious awareness relative to the "object" -- in 
this case a vengeful person.  But does such language mean that the Greeks 
weren't sensible of their subjectivity as individual human beings?  How can 
one be "emotional" and not realize it as proprietary awareness?  Today we 
might describe this as a feeling of "disgust" or great "disappointment". 
Some philosophers might even call it "negative value".  But few beyond this 
forum would try to express such sensibility in an "intellectual" syntax.

> ... 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.

Warfare is a social (3rd level, if you must) strategy.  Today's military 
commanders don't speak of "minds", "subjects" or "objects", either, yet 
they're well aware of enemy troups as subjective individuals collectively 
carrying out the orders of a leader.

> 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.

[Bo]:
> 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.

Existence is "the real world" for us, Bo.  As such, the "SOM side" is always 
operative.  We cannot escape it.  It's not only in the foreground and 
background of our experience, it is the very nature of our being in the 
world.  Only in metaphysical conceptions can we intuit the ultimate reality 
of experiential existence.

> 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.

As I understand your analogy, the constantly lapping waves of the surf 
represent "Static", while the
motionless, unbroken body of water beneath them is called "Dynamic".  WHY? 
This seeming reversal of labels makes no sense -- as your allegory clearly 
demonstrates.

> "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.

This parallels the platonic world of Form (ideas) and Substance (being) in 
which one one partakes of the other to shape physical reality.  In that 
sense, Platonism and the MoQ have duality in common.  Your statement that 
"transcendent" suggests an "otherworldly quality" is quite true, but it is 
what encompasses both the absolute Source and its differentiated appearance. 
I could accept DQ as the primary Source and its patterns (SQ) as 
differentiated existence, if the terms static and dynamic were reversed. 
However, neither Quality nor Value qualifies as the Source, since they 
require a subjective agent for realization.  [Ham's Axiom #1: Unrealized 
value is a logical absurdity.]

> 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 Essentialism will also at some point
> encounter it.

"Sees it all from above" is a transcendent concept with deistic 
implications.  Do you (or Pirsig) mean to suggest that DQ is a sentient 
being or entity?  Again, I can (and do) accept Sensibility as inherent to 
the absolute Source, but Essence is undifferentiated and thus "sees all as 
ONE".  [Cusanus: The first principle is the coincidence of contrariety.]

> Yes, DQ is immutable and unchanging and with and the same
> static essence levels you'd have a winner, a MOE.

And yet you call it DYNAMIC!?  By what logic do you justify that label? 
Evidently, by the same logic that defines an emerging world in flux 
"STATIC".  Thanks for the explanation, Bo, but it still makes no sense to 
me.  Possibly it would help if you could point me to a Pirsig quote in which 
he acknowledges DQ as the a priori source, creator, potentiality, 
progenitor, or fundamental ground of existence.

> 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!

I've been participating on the MD at least since 2003.  It took six years to 
digest enough of the MoQ to
voice an intelligent criticism.  I fear it will take far longer to convince 
you that my criticisms are justified.

Still hoping to be essentially yours,
Ham