[MD] Betterness - 4 levels of!

[rapsncows at fastmail.fm]

Ham,
reply below,
Tim


> Greetings, Tim --
> 
> Nice to meet you, and welcome to the MD.

nice to meet you too; thanks for the welcome.
 
> 
> > Ham,
> > I might jump in real quick,
> >
> >> [Ham] My paradigm here is that of the individual self
> >> looking at its Absolute Source from the "outside",
> >> as it were, and creating an objective reality to represent
> >> the value realized.
> >
> > Ham, I know next to nothing about your position, so I don't want
> > to trouble about too much now.  I'd also like to say that I have
> > some reservations about Pirsig and the MoQ. While I do suspect
> > that there will never be a way to calculate what the 'right' thing to
> > do is, not at any moment, I think that there is much that could be
> > done to bound that decision / state / process / whatever it is.
> > I have wondered if Pirsig was afraid of his insanity, and if that
> > prevented him from pursuing the highest aspirations that Phaedrus
> > had before ... everything.  I have wondered if he settled.

[Ham] 
> You raise an interesting point, Tim.  According to Wikipedia, Pirsig
> spent 
> time in and out of psychiatric hospitals between 1961 and 1963.  ZMM and 
> LILA were published in 1974 and 1991, respectively.  (You can peruse 
> www.psybertron.org for a timeline of the author's activities.)  Many feel 
> that the first book defined the Quality thesis more "accurately" than the 
> second.  Personally, I found the paper titled Subjects, Objects, Data and 
> Values [SODV, presented in June of 1995.] more useful for my purposes, as
> it 
> discusses the paradox of quantum physics and diagrams the four levels
> upon 
> which the MoQ is based.

[Tim]
thanks for the recommendation, I read it yesterday and I think there is
something immediately useful for my conversation with Alexander.

> [Ham]  Just how a nervous breakdown in the '60s
> affected 
> the author's reasoning  or philosophical persuasion remains a matter for 
> speculation.  But it's quite possible that he avoided discussing
> spiritual 
> or theological issues for fear that it might be associated with his 
> breakdown and treatment.
> 
> For example, in response to a query I had sent him in July, 2004, Pirsig 
> wrote:
> "My problem with 'essence' is not that it isn't there or that it is not
> the 
> same as Quality. It is that positivists usually deny 'essence' as
> something 
> like 'God' or 'the absolute' and dismiss it [as] experimentwally 
> unverifiable, which is to say they think you are some kind of religious 
> nut." 
>  I think you can see that being considered "religious" was a pejorative
> that 
> concerned him.

[Tim]
nice to have this inside scoop!

> > [Ham] I also say something you said yestarday, I think you were talking
> > with Platt, and I don't recall the words (though I could find them
> > if its important - and they were repeated today, as I now recall)...
> > anyway, they suggested to me that you have the desire for more
> > formality.  Me too.  I have a feeling that something is ripening in
> > this direction. Though I have had similar feeling before, so it could
> > just be a turd.
> >
> > While I was reading ZAMM and Lila, I felt that I was coming at it
> > from across the aisle.  Anyway, my paradigm - and I would ask you:
> > what if you look at reality as the "absolute source" trying to know 
> > itself?
> 
> That's an astute observation, Tim.  I'm convinced that there has to be a 
> reciprocal function in the dynamics of Value between the "estranged
> agent" 
> and its absolute Source.  In some way that we humans cannot know, Essence
> is 
> made complete or "perfected" through its realization by a an infinite
> number 
> of negated "others".  I suppose your analogy is as reasonable as any
> other.

[Tim]
I think that it is fine to say we cannot know, but I feel that we can
know a whole lot more than we do!

It is almost certainly too premature for me to say anything about the
content of your perspective based on this paragraph - I will have to
follow through with some inquiry into your perspective - but I am
concerned about 'negated'.  I have this picture of 'I' being bounded by
'not-I', but 'not-I' is not a thing as such: it merely points to the
existence of some 'thing' outside 'I'.  Anyway, like I said, it is
probably too premature for me to say anything substantive here.
 
> > [Tim] do the constraints of this process produce a physics?
> 
> [Ham] I'm afraid I am not qualified to answer that question.
> I think Mark is a biophysicist.  Have you asked him?

[Tim]
none of us are.  No one ever has been.  Mark and I have been talking
about it though.  This was a provocative question on my part.  And
perhaps I am using Physics too strongly; maybe I should have said
something about a formal, concrete, aspect of meta-physics.  I was
really looking for your intuition on this though.  For my part I am
wondering whether metaphysics is a wandering in the high country or a
descent into the abyss.  does our wandering lead to another valley, or
is the benefit of our wandering realized by our ability to get back out
of the abyss.  You have an intuition, or a sense, or a feeling about
this, and I was hoping you would share.  Does all this precise
discussion of the realm beyond physics (meta) work?  Does it hold
together?  Does it hold water?  I don't know what the best way to state
this is.  For my part I think that metaphysics must ultimately point to
something concrete: this could be a physics, it could be a social order,
or it could be a religion/spiritualism.  The question is whether
metaphysics is eternally isolated from these concrete fruits or not.  I
was looking for ... something from you.  (And Mark also, etc.)

>[Ham] Thanks for your interest, Tim.  I hope you enjoy the forum.
> 
> --Ham

[Tim]
I am having a great time so far, but if metaphysics is eternally
isolated from concrete fruits I don't think I will last all that long. 
Though there is something to be said for effects on the concrete through
the back door, through one-on-one personal interaction.

Tim
-- 
  
  rapsncows at fastmail.fm

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