[MD] a view

[MarshaV]

On Apr 5, 2010, at 12:25 PM, John Carl wrote:

> Thanks for posting this, Marsha.  You certainly give us a lot to chew on.
> I've been wanting to address parts of it, but it's been a busy weekend.
> 
> Hopefully I'll have time to tell you about that.  Right now, I just wanna
> philosophize:
> 
> On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 10:12 AM, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>> This is how I understand the Intellectual (SOM) Level.  From
>> the SOM perspective, there is the unknown and the known.
>> 
> 
> 
> Is that true?  What is, an "unknown"?  A mental construct of some kind?  A
> variable space carved out of the rest of reality, ready to be filled in
> later?  I'm not sure.

Hmmm.  When medical science goes in search for a cure for whatever, it's
become a cure is to some degree unknown.  How the brain works is still 
to a great degree unknown.  


> But leaving that aside, from a SOM perspective, I'd say there is the thinker
> and her thoughts - and that's all.

I'd say there are static patterns of value.  


> 
> I think a very important component of the MoQ that's left out of discussion
> usually, is that RMP's main beef was the relegation of values to mere
> subjective opinion.  Something Not real, like the objective reality a
> scientist reports on.

I tried to leave as much out of 'my view' as possible.


> 
> Simply by explaining valuation as fundamental to reality, the MoQ overthrew
> the ideas of SOM.  That's the main point that is the heart of the MoQ.  That
> is our Absolute - Value - Quality - the Good.

I know nothing of an absolute?  I could fantasize about an absolute, but that
seems like a poor idea.  



> You can deduce its ontological necessity as some are wont to do, or just sit
> on a hot stove as  is the preference of others.  But it's fundamental nature
> is obvious which is why Royce dismissively refers to it as a theory of being
> that "no serious thinker holds for long".

My favorite serious thinker was Socrates who was called the wisest man
in Athens, by the Pythia of Delphi, because he didn't claim he knew anything 
nor imagined I did.



>> The known uses language as its primary tool.  Language has been
>> built hand-in-hand with human understanding of reality, they have
>> evolved together, and they reflect reality as subjects and objects,
>> our language and subject-object metaphysics are interrelated.
>> 
> 
> Almost true.  "metaphysics" get's tossed around a lot.  Definitely language
> is part and parcel of the thinker and her thoughts.  But many cultures in
> history have formulated ideas about what you might mean by "unknown",
> bringing it into the realm of the known
>  with no ultimate denial of values
> as only subjective.  In fact, just the opposite, right?
> 
> Thus the assumption of assigning metaphysical status to the S/O combine has
> not been inextricably linked with language.
> 
> 

Like pink unicorns and god?  Oh, you're talking about imagination...   


> 
> 
> 
>> (In the Social Level, this s-o understanding is unconscious.)
>> In the Intellectual Level the subject-object split is conscious,
>> and has undergone a dissection to strip the ‘subjective’ from
>> influencing our search for the external Truth in Nature.
> 
> 
> 
> One big place I disagree with Bo's read, is the interpretation of bottom-up
> evolutionary development from lower level to higher.   It just doesn't work
> for me.  I say that social patterns are created intellectually.
> 
> Take ancient religious myths, for instance.  The idea that they just evolved
> socially is wrong on its face.  Social patterns do not arise spontaneously
> anymore than chemistry professors do.  Somebody had to think this stuff up.
> Somebody had to ponder the unknown and attempt to bring it into the realm of
> knowability in a manner comprehensible and transferable and workable in the
> empirical world of experience.  When everybody in the tribe recognizes it as
> good, it gets passed on.
> 
> That's intellectual activity, that is.  No other animal does it, only
> humanity.
> 
> So the "social religions" of the ancients and the moderns, are social in the
> sense of their propogation, enactment and continuance.   But certainly not
> their origin or creation.  Thus this idea of Bo's straightline evolving from
> the bottom reality is ridiculous and anti-MoQ as well.


The known is basically false, but often good.    



>> You might at this point suggest that the Eastern point-of-view has
>> developed a reality that reflects the MoQ, and it was developed
>> many centuries ago.  I might agree that there are Eastern philosophies
>> that are monistic.  But I’d remind you that enlightenment is considered
>> an awakening, an awakening from the wrong understanding of reality.
>> That wrong understanding of reality is the dualistic, self-other, or
>> subject-object, point-of-view which inspires desire and fear, and
>> causes suffering.  Buddhism has created an complete system of
>> practice to assist the individual to move from ignorance to clarity.
>> This clarity is not the norm for most.
>> 
>> 
> 
> Buddhism is a very high Quality intellectual system.  It's not SOM and it's
> not the MoQ.  I think it's of lower quality than the MoQ, but I'd be hard
> pressed to describe exactly why.  At this time, I say it mainly as a matter
> of faith.  Faith in two different authors coming from two differing
> perspectives, RMP and Royce, who both look long and hard at mysticism and
> both end up discarding it for similar reasons.  Pirsig stated his when he
> walked out of Benares (figuratively) over the question of whether atomic
> bombs dropped on people really happened.

I find Buddhism extremely wise, but I still like to check things out for myself.  To
check against ones own experience was suggested by both the Buddha and 
Mr. Pirsig.  That's why I'm holding tight to Quality(unpatterned experience 
and patterned experience.) 


>> I suppose I might add that my understanding is more stable then
>> ever before, but it is still always subject to change.
>> 
> Which is one reason I highly value your thinking  Marsha.   "Subject to
> change" means always improving  and getting better all the time.


The more I discover not this, not that, the more my experience gets better.    

I thought I'd state 'my view' of the fourth level for the record.  Thanks for 
responding.   


Marsha
 
 
 


 
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