[MD] Uncertainty

[Ham Priday]

On Tuesday, 9/8/09, 6:44 PM,  Kaye Palm-Lies wrote:


> Marsha,
>
> You asked,
>> I really do wonder what it must be like when you are
>> immersed in Quantum theory and really believe it is "real"?
>
> I believe your question is closely aligned with a key question
> that isn't asked often enough and IMO is a center fulcrum
> of the discussion related to MOQ, intellect and SOL,
> "Is it real?" . Bo mentioned that "This "what is it like to be ..."
> is another conundrum that SOM imposes....." This is true
> but I think it is so important to understand that this vital
> question of, "is it real" is what started the whole intellect
> business and got us to where we are.
>
> I am reminded in ZMM when Pirsig writes about Sylivia's
> observation about the people on the road. "They look so lost".
> I have reread that chapter and thought Pirsig directly connected
> this question of "what is real" and people feeling lost. I couldn't
> find it. The point he does get at is that for the most part people
> don't ask that question about if it is real because the answer is
> somehow lost in objective and subject world, a world they know
> so little about but impacts them so much. ...
>
> When I would read about the early Greek philosophers,
> they too were asking the same question about what is real.
> It is the essential metaphysical question.  Thales, Anaximander,
> Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Empedocles,Anaxagoras and other
> Greek philosophers of the time were asking that very question,
> what is real.  This was a time when the social level dominated
> the world and if you asked somebody if something was real
> they could only really defer to the social constructs of the day,
> their gods to answer the those questions.

I can empathize with your frustration, Mati, for I feel the same discontent. 
The essential metaphysical question is, indeed, "What is real?"  And the 
answer always seems to get lost in translation.  In the case of the MoQ I 
believe the problem is that the author didn't really want to expound a 
metaphysics.  What he offers instead is a euphemistic paradigm for the 
experienced world.  He's answering your question by saying, this is "what it 
is like to be" in the world if Quality is imagined to be its essence.  He 
describes a multi-level system that works as a cogent ontology only if you 
accept the Quality premise.  We are left with the question no one dares to 
ask: Is it REAL?

> There was an objective world that seemed separate from the
> social order of things.  Yet.... they didn't know how to explain
> reality that was beholden to the social order of the time.
> Now Aristotle proposes the S/O split.  It is a fairly neat
> metaphysical construct and both the subjective and objective
> realities can be accounted for.  I know that SOM has gotten
> a bad rap and from a metaphyscal perspective it certainly had
> its shortcomings. Yet for 2500 years it has served us so well
> until the obvious metaphysical limitations were identified and
> not ignored.
>
> The issue with SOM is that it did a realitively good job
> capturing a lot of what was real, but there was a lot that SOM
> couldn't capture, namely quality.  That was the struggle and
> burden that Pirsig took on and provided us with MOQ.
> MOQ is a totally a different Metaphysical perspective that
> clarifies the world around us and could handle the question
> of the reality of quality.  One of the problems that MD seems
> to understand is that fundamental difference between MOQ
> and S/O (SOM) in the context of intellect.  Bo constantly
> reminds us, almost to the point of nauseum, that when we fail
> to understand that MOQ and S/O (SOM) are metaphysically
> different worlds, this is often the culprit of SOM.  When we
> cry foul that MOQ and SOM are both intellect, we forget
> that comes from the subjective prospective that was born from
> SOM.  MOQ liberates us from that SOM point that goes nowhere.
> The crux seems to be that nobody feels really imprisoned by
> SOM at its core, and naturally use the the context of "I" in the
> subjective realm to account the world around us.  That is ok
> until we start asking questions like, "is it real".  Is quality real? ...
> But soon the question gets bogged down in its (SOM)
> limitations.  The next question is "Intellect" real?  Yup....
> MOQ says it is real, we basically know it is real but we seem
> to start from the same subjective realm, born from SOM, to
> answer the question.  Just like quality the question, it gets
> bogged down for the same reason. ...
> We need to step away from the subjective realm and approach
> it from a strictly metaphysical realm, devoid of the subjective
> tethers of SOM to really see and understand what is going on.
> Bo seems to try to cut those tethers for us, but for each one he
> seems to cut another appears.  Hmmmm...... a thankless job.
> Good thing he sees this as his passion and not a job.

I'm impressed, and I totally agree.  Quality and Intellect are both "real" 
only if our focus is restricted to experiential reality.  But one of Bo's 
habits is to posit S/O and intellect as stages of evolution, which again 
tethers the MOQ (or SOL) to natural process, limiting the ontology to 
space/time existence.  Like his mentor, Bo is unwilling to explore a 
metaphysical approach to reality which could resolve our dilemma.

> And a final point is that MOQ gives us the dignity to ask
> the question, "is it real" and provide us a better foundation
> to answer the question.

Well, you have just exercised that dignity, and I commend you for it.  It 
would seem to me that the question needs to be answered in two parts: How 
"real" is finitude? and, Is there a reality that transcends it?

Thanks for having the temerity to voice a concern that must be high on the 
list of unasked MD questions.

Essentially yours,
Ham