[MD] Wanted: A proper foundation

[Ham Priday]

 Hi Bo --

> Darwin's evolution theory is science and I  "..leave unto science
> what science's is".  It's when it comes to how life emerged in the
> first place that MOQ's adds something useful. The dynamic
> "dislike" of inorganic stability resulted in biological stability, which 
> in
> turn resulted in social stability, and - finally - intellectual stability.

I find it curious that you (i.e., Pirsig) exhort "instability", while the 
rest of mankind is desperately looking for a way to make the world more 
stable -- scientifically, socially, economically, internationally, 
militarily.  Isn't this going against the central premise that "the dynamic 
'dislike' of biological stability" is what inexorably moves the world to 
"betterness"?  If so, how do you market the philosophy of dynamic 
instability to world torn by instability?  Should you even try?

[Ham, previously]:
> Difference is negated from Essence with no loss of absolute integrity.
> The "aspects" of differentiation and the emergence of otherness in
> space/time are precisely what Essence is NOT.

[Bo]:
> This is a variety of the fallacious pure Quality of which MOQ is a
> corruption, this is wrong: Quality IS the MOQ. I suggest that space,
> time and everything that constitutes our existence are "static"
> aspects of a "dynamic" Essence, but that would make
> Essentialism a copy of the MOQ and I guess that's anathema-

Indeed, "pure Quality", like "pure Value", is fallacious, since they are 
both relational.  But you have it backwards, Bo.  Only an MoQist would call 
a developing series of events in time "static".  If the world were static, 
there could be no whirling electrons or energy exchanges to create 
molecules, orbiting planets, bio-genetic processes, or living species.  If 
you need an example of a dynamic process, study the evolution of life forms 
on this planet -- including the civilization of man.  The physical universe 
and everything in it has been in constant flux since the big bang.  Nothing 
in existence is stable or static, from a rock in the desert to the history 
of mankind.  Only Essence is static.

> But would there be any Essence without "man"? Course not and in
> that case Essence is a fallout of Man and and Metaphysics of Man
> (MOM) is called for. ...

Your rhetorical question reveals what may well be the crux of our dispute. 
Man is only a transient observer with no essential reality.  What he senses 
is the value of Essence.  Everything else is a finite construct of his 
organic sensibilities.  Inasmuch as man is estranged from Essence, his 
existence as a being-aware is but a passing phase of ultimate reality.  So 
your answer is wrong.  Man's existence is derived from Essence and is 
conditionally dependent on it.  Only Essence is uncreated, independent, and 
immutable.

Now let me return the question: Would there be any Quality without man? 
(Give this some thought before you answer.)  Remember that Pirsig refused to 
define Quality, insisting that "we all know what it is."  What if there was 
no one to sense it, experience it, "know" it?  Where or what would Quality 
or Value be in the absence of a sensible observer?

> I am fully aware of Man's central role, so central that it can't be
> part of argument or - as said a billion times - a MOM is needed,
> and IMO as a copy of the MOQ ... fine with me,
> it's the Dynamic/Static and static levels that counts.

As said before, without change no pattern could form.  Even discerning a 
pattern is a process in time.  Existence is a dynamic relational system 
derived from an uncreated source which has no relations nor a need to 
change.

> SOM's "final world" Immanuel Kant postulated that time, space,
> causation is "the world for us" while the "inherent properties of the
> the universe" (world in itself) is out of reach. This you seemingly
> subscribe to, something that makes you an inhabitant of MOQ's
> intellectual level, i.e. not the ultimate vantage point.

Kant was right that time, space and causation represent man's world. 
However, I would argue that the world is not out of reach, since we "reach 
out to it" every day through experience and all our knowledge comes from it. 
What Kant, and the existentialists who followed him, failed to understand is 
that there is no "in" or "out", and that what they called the 
"world-in-itself" is actually the experiential world that each self 
actualizes.

> I have no illusions about the two of us converting each other, but
> it's interesting and compared to some moqists you are a true
> philosopher.

Thanks for the compliment, Bo.  I try, in my own way, but so far there have 
been no known converts to Essentialism.

Yours essentially,
Ham