[MD] The MOQ difference

[MarshaV]

Thank you Platt  :-)   


On Sep 25, 2010, at 9:02 AM, Platt Holden wrote:

> Hi Ham, Marsha, All:
> 
> I think Marsha has excellent responses to your comments, Ham. I would just
> add that Idealism is absurd on its face. My cat UTOE's existence depends on
> many things, including his daily dose of Friskies Tuna and Whitefish Medley,
> but someone looking at him is not among those things, and . everyone knows
> this.
> 
> Regards,
> Platt
> 
> On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 4:32 AM, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Greetings Ham,
>> 
>> On Sep 25, 2010, at 3:02 AM, Ham Priday wrote:
>> 
>>> Greetings Platt, Marsha, John and All --
>>> 
>>> On Sept 23 at 4:08 PM Platt wrote:
>>> 
>>>> SOM axiom: "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it
>> so."
>>>> 
>>>> MOQ axiom: Everything is good or bad before thinking at all.
>>>> 
>>>> We can see what the MOQ is up against -- Pirsig vs. Shakespeare,
>>>> a far out idea vs.conventional wisdom.
>>>> 
>>>> Do the levels get in the way of Pirsig's Copernican revolution?
>>>> 
>>>> Does he cater too much to SOM thinking?
>>> 
>>> First of all, difference is the nature of existential reality; so there
>> is no "special difference" that applies to subject-object (SOM) experience.
>> As for Dynamic Quality being divided into four distinct levels, that is
>> Pirsig's theory of "causation by preference", and it limits the MoQ to the
>> evolutionary process of scientific objectivism.
>> 
>> Quality is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable.  It is static patterns
>> that are categorized into four evolutionary levels.
>> 
>> 
>>> No offense to RMP, but of course I side with Shakespeare on the question
>> of values.  What is "good" or "bad" is man's judgment
>> (experiencing/thinking/feeling) based on his value orientation.  More
>> recently, astrophysicist John Wheeler noted: "...what we say about the
>> universe as a whole depends on the means we use to observe it.  In the act
>> of observing we bring into being something of what we see.  Laws of physics
>> relate to man, the observer, more closely than anyone has thought before.
>> The universe is not 'out there', somewhere, independent of us.  Simply put:
>> without an observer, there are no laws of physics."
>> 
>> Andre quoted Ant''s PhD thesis where there may be two views of Quality.
>> The first, from an ultimate point-of-view is good by existence, the second
>> is a conventionally applied good or bad judgement dependent of relative
>> experience.
>> 
>> 
>>> I think he understates the case.  Not only are there no laws of physics,
>> there is no physical world without an observer.  A few days ago, Marsha
>> quoted a developer of quantum physics as saying: "Observations not only
>> _disturb_ what is to be measured, they _produce_ it."  If, as Pirsig wrote
>> [in SODV], "the observation creates the reality," and if the sense of
>> Quality is primary to objective experience, then two conclusions can be
>> drawn:
>>> 1)  An observer (subject) is necessary for objects to exist, and
>>> 2)  Quality (Value) is the essence of empirical reality.
>> 
>> The "the observation creates the reality" statement is what I interpret the
>> Lila character to be saying in the Chapter Fourteen soliloquy.  And in the
>> MoQ aren't these two points-of-view considered the (1) static view and the
>> (2) Dynamic view.  The insistence on an 'independent individual' is result
>> of the static view.
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> Yes, Platt, this is "SOM thinking".  But we MUST think in SOM terms when
>> dealing with the differentiated world of objects and events.  More
>> importantly, from a metaphysical standpoint, we need to dispense with
>> difference when postulating Ultimate Reality.  The MoQ tries to straddle
>> both dimensions, using the same terminology to describe "static" and
>> "dynamic" phenomena, thus failing to break through finitude to an absolute
>> source.  And therein lies much of the confusion regarding patterns,
>> subjectivity, and intellect.
>>> 
>>> The pattern I've noted in recent posts is an attempt to deny both
>> objectivity and subjectivity and describe the world as if it could be
>> understood without observation.  That's like trying to explain time in a
>> world where nothing changes.  It makes no sense to deny the obvious; this
>> only complicates the issue and its exposition.
>> 
>> To know the world in the static (conventional) sense does require the s/o
>> split.  On that rests my understanding of the Fourth Level being SOM, but
>> there is unpatterned experience to expose that as illusion, an understanding
>> that is beyond static knowledge.
>> 
>> 
>>> In a different thread, John pointed out another important concept that
>> has been slighted in the MoQ: Freedom.  If goodness is fixed to Quality in
>> the universe, we have no alternative but to experience goodness.  But we
>> experience the bad along with the good.  That's because Quality is only a
>> relative measure of goodness--which allows for free choice.
>> 
>> To be detached from the total dependence on static knowledge is freedom.
>> 
>> 
>>> [John to Andre on 9/23]:
>>>> A response to Quality can be good or bad, right?  You can harmonize,
>>>> or be out of tune.  There is choice.
>>>> 
>>>> Good can exist with freedom, because choice is as fundamental as value.
>>>> If there is no choice, there is no good.
>>> 
>>> Indeed, as I have argued previously, it is our CHOICE of value, not the
>> patterns we construct from it, that is fundamental to human existence.
>> 
>> And isn't this CHOICE only available in a detached awareness?
>> 
>> 
>>> Essentially speaking,
>>> Ham
>> 
>> 
>> Marsha
>> 
>> 
>> p.s.  I've read 'Reason and Existence' by Karl Jasper.  I was off to a good
>> start and very much enjoyed the first lecture where I thought more than once
>> 'This can be said of Quality too.', but I got lost in the rest of the
>> lectures.  I have still to read 'Introduction to Existentialism.'   Perhaps
>> I should have read that book first.  -  Right now, I am hot on the trail of
>> "quantum reality."   Hahaha!
>> 


 
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