[MD] Quality and the Higgs Field: An Analogy

[Ham Priday]

Hey, Mark --


> I do not believe you interpretation of my view is
> quite correct.  I provide some more verbiage below.
>
> Quality is not an independent agent.  There is no obviation
> of a creator, Quality is the creator.  You seem to be
> stuck on a separation of man from nature.  What we term
> moral is the equivalent of a rainstorm.  We cannot separate
> ourselves from it.  It is all the same thing.  I could say that
> Quality is Tao (as an analogy).  It is the source of all.
> We as humans happen to call it Quality (my view of course).

Well, then, if your Quality is the creator and the equivalent of the Tao, 
you are defining it as the Primary Source.  This, of course, I reject on the 
ground that what is
"primary" cannot be dependent on something else, and Quality depends on a 
conscious agent.  Not even Eckhart would have accepted that definition for 
'IS-ness'.

> MoQ is a discussion of a metaphysics based on Quality.
> As such, it provides analogies instead of definitions.  This is
> similar to not being able to define God, but simply give our
> appreciation of such. There is nothing unusual about this.
> By defining something you have to leave something out.
> Any definition of Quality is also part of Quality, so you can
> see the endless regress or expansion there.  Your definition
> of Value is good; it implies action.  Without a qualitative
> difference between less than or greater than, Value does not
> exist.  Value in this way is brought into existence by Quality.

In what way does Value imply action?  Value evokes love, longing, desire, 
awe, appreciation, and pleasure, among other emotional feelings.  Is this an 
"action"?

> I would have to say, again, that Quality is the source.
> I am not trying to be oblique or tricky here.  At some point,
> we cannot bring up the chicken and egg analogy when it has
> no meaning.  You provide Absolute essence as such a thing.
> I do not believe that Essence is necessary since Quality fits
> the bill.  Quality as we express or sense it could be
> considered a "figment" of our brains.  But we are expressing
> a natural tendency that exists, and such a figment is just as
> real as anything else.  We could ask what created the forces
> in physics.  Many physicists believe that existed even before
> they manifested.

I don't see how the chicken/egg analogy applies to the primary source --  
especially for one who understands that cause-and-effect is an intellectual 
precept of temporal experience.  If forces existed before they were 
manifested, they would have had to be conceived by a 'supernatural' creator 
before there was any awareness of Quality or Value.  Whatever label you 
apply to the primary source, it must be "uncreated" and self-sufficient.  A 
physical force posseses neither of these attributes, nor does Quality.
> Abstract thought could be considered uncreated.  In terms
> of the use of Attractive Force, Quality could certainly be seen
> as providing that.  In this way, Quality provides direction.
> Such direction may be different for each individual.

Abstract thought is the intellectual product of the thinker.  Even the 
courts acknowledge published thoughts as the "private property" of the 
orginator or creator.

[Ham previously]:
> But by making the claim that "everything is natural", you seem
> to be denying the need for a metaphysical source. How does
> that differ from the objectivist's ("logical positivist"'s) worldview
> that Pirsig disparages?

[Mark]:
> That is not quite correct.  I answered you question about God
> in a post.  I alluded to Eckhart's sense of God as being similar
> to my sense of Quality.  I am not sure if your use of atheistic
> ontology is quite correct.  My view may not match a specific
> dogmatic religion, but I wouldn't call it atheistic.  I can't speak
> to your question concerning objectivism since I do not quite
> understand it.  By everything being natural, I mean't that we
> cannot separate ourselves from the world at large.  We cannot
> create Quality as something new. In the same way we cannot
> say that we are intelligent and nothing is as intelligent as us.
> This just doesn't make sense since our intelligence is just a form
> of a much larger intelligence, it didn't just pop out of nowhere
> (as above, so below).  Now don't confuse this with intelligent
> design, that is another subject altogether.

Atheism is the disbelief (rejection of) a deity or god, irrespective of 
religion or dogma.  I applied that term to your ontology before you 
qualified it above.  By positing Quality as "the source" you are now putting 
it on the same "deistic pedestal" as my Essence, so I'll withdraw the 
appellation.  But if "the larger intelligence" you refer to is that of the 
Source, intelligence must be an aspect of Quality, no?

> Ham, I wanted to digress here a bit, since it seems that I have not
> explained Quality as separation in an understandable way to you.
> I will present two analogies to see if this helps.
>
> The first analogy is the stock market.  To make the market useful,
> one desires to buy low and sell high.  The money is made in the
> separation of the low from the high.  Therefore, it does not matter
> what the absolute prices of the stock are, what separates them is
> important.  A trader does not look at the absolute prices, but at
> the differences between the purchase and possible sale prices.
> The trader looks at the Quality of the trade.  In the same way,
> when we make choices between apples, we do not look at the
> apples themselves, but at the difference (Quality) between them.
> It is this separation we look at.
>
> The second deals with a hypothetical line in the universe.  Let's say
> that this line embodies Quality in a progressive way from low to high.
> If we take a single point on this line, we have no way of knowing
> what the Quality is since the line is infinite in both directions.  We
> can only know Quality by referencing that point to another point on
> the line.  In this way, things cannot contain Quality or Value.  Such
> a thing can only be realized (to use your words) by focussing on the
> separation.
>
> So, I am not saying that Quality is what is between atoms or houses
> in order for them to be separated.  I would say, however, that
> at any level, be it the molecular or astronomical, it is possible to see
> Quality as separating one thing from another.  In our simplistic
> realization of the world, we may not immediately see a qualitative
> difference between apples and oranges.  However, if we spend
> enough time on such a thing, we find that one is of higher quality
> than another at a particular time (if we need to choose, that is).
> So, Quality is not static, it is not physical, and it is not embodied by
> things, it is what separates them.  Quality is realized in the moment.
> While memory can sometimes bring out Quality, it can be fickle.

Okay, I think I've got the principle.  It's more a qualitative difference or 
distinction than a quantitative or spacial separation of things.  Still, 
what we are aware of as "quality" or "value" is not the "line (scale) of 
difference" per se but the object or event observed; so you haven't yet 
convinced me that Quality alone differentiates.

> Again, I have no problem talking about creators or Gods,
> I do it all the time with friends of mine.  I often find it mind
> expanding. I just didn't want to complicate the thread.
> What (or who) is your creator?

Since I don't distinguish religion from philosophy in conceptualizing 
reality, my creator is the Essence I have been describing.  There are no 
"hidden assumptions" in the philosophy of Essence.

Essentially yours,
Ham