[MD] Quality as the fundamental building block of reality

[118]

Hi Tuukka,

One way to approach Quality is through a structural paradigm as you
present.  That is, Quality is an essence which comprises all in a
building block scenario.  There are other approaches however, which
are equally intuitive.

Consider the following:  Quality is a "stimulus" from which all else
arises.  By stimulus, I can use the following analogy (one of many):
The smell of food makes you hungy.  You then go into a restaurant and
order a meal which you eat.  We cannot rightly say that "the smell of
food" is a "building block" for the restaurant or eating actions you
took, in that the smell of food does not comprise eating it
subsequently except as a stimulus.  However, without the smell of
food, your actions would not have happened (at least not right then).
Now, we can argue that "the smell of food" is a property, but that is
not how I am using it.  There are better analogies (I have to think,
however), but hopefully this one will give you an idea.

In this manner, Quality can be seen as the stimulus for everything
that we experience.  Being Quality, it provides all the qualities of
life.  These qualities are what we can experience, since we cannot
experience something "directly", only its expression.  In a way, we
can say that it is the interaction of qualities (us an others) which
come from the fundamental ground of Quality.  If we ask where do these
qualities come from, we can say Quality.  Another answer would be that
it is "qualities all the way down", which is the Buddhist approach to
reality.

I have explained this to my friend Ham in many ways, but rather than
direct you to those posts (I do not know which they are),  I will have
yet another explanation coming which is more in his terminology of
Essentialism (another long story).

dmb uses the terminology "event" which he could explain better than I,
but I believe it is similar to my presentation.

There are many ways to explain reality.  The Western method seems to
be a linear or structural mode.  This is of course what logic is,
which subscribes to truths.  The Hindu method is more of a circular or
"dance" mode, which subscribes more to narrative or rhetoric
(remember dialectic v rhetoric from ZAMM?).  They are different
enough, that a different woldview (Weltanschauung) can be had.  It is
often difficult to relate the two since they are formed from different
assumptions.  I prefer the interactive or "relational" approach rather
than the linear or "relative" approach.  East v West as it were.

"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
tho' they come from the ends of the earth!"

-From the begining of  the Ballad of East and West, Rudyard Kippling
(a good poem).

Just my opinion,
Mark

On 1/5/12, Tuukka Virtaperko <mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net> wrote:
> All,
>
> Let's suppose no philosophy besides the MOQ ever existed. What, then,
> would it mean to state that everything is Quality?
>
> If "being Quality" is the property of any thing, the following question
> will arise: which one is more fundamental - that thing or its property
> of being Quality?
>
> Yet, if you can't identify the properties of everything, you can't
> really state anything about it.
>
> Of course there are also other philosophies than the MOQ, such as SOM.
> Therefore, it is reasonable to say that "everything is Quality", because
> this conveys the idea that anybody who says so wishes to discuss
> philosophy from the viewpoint of the Metaphysics of Quality, and not
> from the viewpoint of some other doctrine. But if other doctrines would
> not exist, I don't know what it would mean to say that "everything is
> Quality". It's not, in a strict sense, a philosophical statement. It's
> mostly an instruction for humans to choose the right tradition of
> discussion from multiple alternatives.
>
> -Tuukka
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