[MD] Intellect's Symposium

[Ham Priday]

Hi Bo --


On Tuesday, 2/9, you wrote:

> Ham
>> Although I don't believe Quality is Reality, I can accept this logic,
>> provided that what Mark means by "expression" is "experience".
>
> To pick nits I would have liked Mark to say: "The DQ/SQ
> arrangement is fixed, while its DQ isn't". That means that DQ
> cannot transcend the MOQ.
>
>> If something "expresses" itself it is revealing or manifesting its
>> existence to an observer.  What is its appearance to an observer
>> but "experience"?  And, inasmuch as human experience is limited
>> to time/space perception, it seems plausible that a constant is
>> experienced incrementally as an evolutionary phenomenon.
>
> I feel that you Ham - however subtle, academic and learned this
> sounds - speak from SOM's premises: A subjective observer who
> experiences an objective reality   ... maybe an evolutionary reality,
> maybe not. MOQ's point is that that it's the 4th. level that created these
> premises. The proof of this is (your favorite ;-) that humankind when
> the 3rd. level was "leading edge" didn't have any S/O arrangement.

I figured you would regard manifestation as an SOM phenomenon.  That's why I 
qualified "Reality" in two ways:
[Ham, previously]::
>> That all depends on what we mean by Reality.
>> If Reality is the physical universe and its components
>> (again, "as experienced") it is most certainly an evolutionary
>> system.
>> On the other hand, if we're talking about Ultimate Reality (the
>> Primary Source of all appearances), then there is no logical
>> justification for imputing a condition like "evolutionary" to it.

[Bo]:
> Here you go again. People of old (social level) knew no S/O hence
> their Realities did not split along those lines, while you - a 4th. level
> dweller - notoriously speak about a physical universe as contrasted to
> (maybe) some "evolutionary" system.

Of course I disagree with that analysis.  "People of old" experienced 
objective reality as subjects just as do "people of the present".  They 
didn't need a metaphysics of S/O to understand that the physical world is 
an object of their experience.  I don't know what a "4th level dweller" is 
meant to signify -- intellectual (?) -- but, for most of us anyway, the 
physical universe IS an "evolutionary system".

> Between you and me Ham, I don't see much meaning in ultimate
> anything which is then divided. People of old (social level) had the
> Gods/Mortals division in so many forms from mythologies to the
> Semitic type religions. Then the (intellectual level's) Subject/Object
> division and finally MOQ's Dynamic/Static division with all other view
> as its static levels.

The problem with Pirsig's philosophy is the premise that reality is assumed 
to be a divided system   from the beginning.  There is no creator, no 
design, no purpose.  There is only Quality.  Apart from the fact that 
Quality (Value) is a human measurement, nothing comes from nothingness, let 
alone a divided system.  There must be a primary cause or source for 
anything to be.  This is not a concept of mythology or religion, it's the 
logic of reason.

[Mark]:
>> "Even an ever-changing perception can be absolute in its change."
>
[Ham]:
>> This assertion is somewhat problematic.  A change can be a constant
>> (I think physicists refer to it as 'delta')  if said change is 
>> non-variable,
>> such as a steady increase at a fixed rate over time.
>> However, there is no empirical support for "constancy" in the
>> evolutionary process that I'm aware of. Also, evolution is only
>> one aspect of Reality.

[Bo]:
> I don't feel this as problematic for the MOQ. Its dynamism proceeds
> in the said static latchings.

I can't decipher this lexicon.  Would you be so kind as to translate this 
for a layman?

[Ham]:
>> One can't simply isolate "change" and equate it to reality.  It
>> overlooks the myriad functions and principles of the universe --
>> physical, chemical, biological, electro-magnetic, conscious, etc.

[Bo]:
> Wonder if not this is exactly what you say?

Could you also explain the meaning of this scrambled comment?

[Ham]:
>> In my metaphysical vernacular, Absolute is One all-encompassing
>> Reality from which difference, multiplicity, and process are derived
>> appearances.

[Bo]:
> Your Essentialism and the MOQ would have been identical if you had
> let the Absolute spawn something similar to the static level system. Or
> is it this you hints to?

Essence (not Quality) is the uncreated source that "spawns" all appearances.
(Not "identical" but not exactly contradictory, either.)

Thanks, Bodvar.

Best regards,
Ham