[MD] MOQ and the Future: An Inquiry into Usefulness

[Ham Priday]

On Monday, 11/16/09 at 7:59 AM, Platt wrote:



> Seems to me that by saying the universe emerged with Quality
> that you've ducked the question, "Why did the universe emerge?"
> Was it, "Oops, suddenly a universe appeared" as Arlo believes?
> Or did it turn up because it was good to do so as the MOQ
> suggests?  Pirsig says that Quality is "the source of all things."
> To me that includes the universe and existence as we know it.
>
> There's no reason to spooked by anyone's charges of theism.
> The creative power of Quality can be viewed as a perfectly natural
> phenomenon. Just because it may not fall into the scientist's definition
> of natural -- namely that which can be measured and/or reproduced
> by experiment -- doesn't mean Quality is a God of religious faith.
> It could simply be an intrinsic principle of rightness.
>
> Let's not be limited in our thinking by the scientific SOM worldview.
> Isn't that the underlying message of the MOQ? Or as Hamlet put it,
> "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt
> of in your philosophy."
>
> Looking forward to your comments.

Not only does it "duck the question," the universe couldn't have Quality 
(Value) without a sensible agent to realize it.  So, if your "why?" seeks a 
teleological answer (a 'raison d'être'), it's that existence emerges so that 
Value can be realized independently of the essential source.  This is what 
we do when we experience something: we negate its being in order to claim 
its value.  (Check out Hegel's double-negation.)

In MOQ terms, experience is the "cutting edge" of reality.  Experience 
"creates" the universe by defining and delineating the properties of being 
differentially from value sensibility.  Only in this way can Quality (Value) 
be realized.  Man is the measure of all things.  Only as an autonomous agent 
can man bring Value into being and exercise his freedom.  In the absence of 
this sensible agent, neither the universe nor its inferred Value (Quality) 
exists.

This ontogeny, my dear Horatio, resolves more existential enigmas "than are 
dreamt of in your philosophy."

Warmest regards,
HAMlet