[MD] The first division of the MOQ. - dynamic or Dynamic Quality?

[Ham Priday]

Hi Mark --

On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 2:09 AM, Mark "118" <ununoctiums at gmail.com> wrote:

> I do understand your concept of Essence.  What I have always had
> trouble with (and I think you know this) is the principle of negation.
> Sure, God is everything, it has to be otherwise it is not God.  No
> man with a big white beard for me, thank you very much (except at
> Xmas time of course).
>
> My question was intended to get more information about what you see.
> It was not a deep question that presented my inner psyche by any
> means.  I am a biologist, but I do not believe in an evolving universe
> as it is currently presented.  What becomes Qualityism if you want, is
> my personal relationship with the cosmos.  It is not some words on a
> piece of paper.  If I have shortocomings with my realtionship with
> reality, then it certainly does not come from what Pirsig writes.  He
> is not that powerful, and certainly not my mentor.
>
> I wouldn't get too enamoured with something that Pythagora's is said
> to have said.  Once you restrict yourself that way, you diminish your
> creativity.  You will find, that our intellectual constructs actually
> do come from nothing.  If not, where do they come from?  Can you
> point to their origins?  Can you state where it is that your sense of self
> comes from?

Actually I was wrong; it was Parmenides.  But I do not see the principle 
that 'nothing comes from nothing' and the primary source is 'not-other' as 
"restrictive".   On the contrary, these insights open the door of 
understanding to concepts still regarded as unfathomable or illogical.  That 
they are not empirically verifiable is significant in itself, for if we had 
direct access to metaphysical truth, we would not be free to choose our 
convictions, such as the reality you are in the process of working out for 
yourself.

I don't understand how can you say intellectual constructs come from 
nothing.  As cognitive creatures, we are all aware of what we experience and 
that we ourselves are the 'knowers'.  So, right from the start, intellection 
and intuition are certainly not operating in a void.  The very first 
intellectual conclusion we make is that what we experience is "real", that 
the things and persons we see around us are the physical objects of reality. 
As we mature, some of us come to doubt this conclusion, and this leads to 
speculative reasoning which can be insightful.  Self-awareness, the "sense 
of self", is one of the principles we tend to question.  Eastern mystics and 
pantheists, for example, believe the concept of selfness is an 'egoistic' 
impediment to cosmic understanding.  Essentialists, on the other hand, hold 
to the view that the individuated self is the valuistic core of existential 
reality, and that attempts to nullify it diminish the meaning and purpose of 
the life-experience.

> You can create words for such a thing, but that is not the same thing.
> Don't get too caught up in words, they are trivial in the end as
> Augustine said, "like straw".  Where does Essence "come from", oh,
> I forgot, it just "is".  Well, I guess it is your one allowed exception,
> but everything else must "come from" something?  My bad.

I am only "caught up in words" to the extent that I need them to communicate 
my concepts.  And if you don't think the MoQ is caught up in words, you'd be 
hard pressed to justify the endless debates going on here as to the meaning 
of "static and dynamic", "quality patterns", "evolution", "free will", 
"intellect", and "betterness".  You scoff at the proposition that Essence 
"just is"; yet you apparently accept the proposition that Quality "just is". 
By what logic or natural law is an aesthetic property self-generating and 
independent of conscious realization?  Do you really think Quality exists in 
the absence of man's relative sensibility and appreciation?  Or is "Quality" 
just another name for the divinity Mr. Pirsig refuses to sanction?

A good mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Essentially speaking,
Ham