[MD] The MOQ and Death

[plattholden at gmail.com]

Hey Bo,

Well said. Beginnings and endings are part and parcel of SOM. It asks, 
"When did existence begin? But as soon as SOM attempts to answer, it 
disappears into a whirlpool of infinite regress with "turtles all the 'way down." In 
the same way, endings never end. So some cosmologists came up with a 
cyclical universe of continuous expansions and contractions. Others solved the 
paradox with endless multiverses. The MOQ steps out of this morass and in so 
doing releases us from being just a little smarter but still basically naked apes. 
Pirsig summed the Quality reality beautifully: "Now Chris's body, which was a 
part of that larger pattern, was gone. But the larger pattern remained." 

Regards,
Platt


On 5 Mar 2010 at 20:03, skutvik at online.no wrote:

Steve, All.

3 March you wrote:
 
> From a cosmic perspective you are but a tiny invisible speck on the
> third planet of an average sized star--just one of billions of
> trillions of such stars in the vastness of nearly empty space.
> Furthermore, your existence as a single speck on a speck among
> billions of trillions of specks is contained in a mere blink of an eye
> in the expanse of time. ... snip

Is this Steve or have you cut and pasted from one of the few remaining 
non-moq philosophers (guffaws) because this is SOM's or intellect's 
outlook, and intellect does NOT represent the MOQ. I know it is 
outrageous to speak about any inorganic or biological  outlook, but if 
the above is intellect's outlook, one can speak about all levels as an 
outlook.    

Only with the social level does outlook occur, and the first burial rites 
reveals the 3rd. level's basic outlook,  namely that of an eternal 
existence - here or beyond - and as the mythologies evolved  the life 
beyond became more complex, with many "levels" - heaven and hell 
withe the Semitic type religions. Then enter the intellectual level whose 
outlook turned all these social outlooks into "mythologies", i.e. artistic 
creations (as ZAMM says) and ended up with the present SOM view 
that you refer to about being specks in an immense and indifferent 
universe. 

But this valueless, empty, cold, indifferent and bleak view is what the 
MOQ has exposed as the 4th. static level of its own system extending 
its limited outlook into universal validity  - i.e. SOM. After MOQ's 
metaphysical revolution everything has changed, the notion of 
ourselves as MINDS observing a MATERIAL universe and that  "....at 
the moment of your death, all these memories will be washed away 
into nothingness ... etc."  is no longer valid. Existence is a VALUE 
evolution, the universe may be vast, but is inorganic value 
nevertheless, if there are life (it certainly is) it's biological value, if life 
has started grouping around "mythologies" it's social value, if all myths 
has been debunked by knowledge it's intellectual value, and - finally - if 
knowledge has been made into a level of a system like the MOQ ...  all 
is good!                         

Steve concluded:

> What does the MOQ have to say about this "fundamental paradox"? Is
> fear of death necessary, or can it be transcended?

> Becker takes this fear to be fundamental and necessary, but his
> conclusions seems to follow from an ontological distinction between
> mind and body. There is a fundamental paradox that can't be resolved
> because our symbolic self is forever alienated from our mortal bodies.
> Since the MOQ  disolves this ontological distinction, the MOQ may
> offer some insights which Becker, with his SOM assumption, may hav
> overlooked overlooked.
 
> I would love to hear what thoughts you may have on that idea since I
> don't have much insight to offer myself, and I fear that I will die
> some day. 

Yes, you bet his is intellect-as-SOM's mind/body - plus all S/Os there 
are -  ontology. Ron mentioned Socrates' attitude, and we see that he 
(Socrates) already had assumed the intellectual attitude, namely of 
death as some bitter but inevitable final word. 

Bodvar


PS
I have not fallen off my rocking chair, but this about the MOQ as 
something beyond intellect is the only option possible if we really 
accept the MOQ. If it is seen as a mere "intellectual pattern" - a 
mindish idea it surely will be ".... washed away into nothingness .."