[MD] Quality as the fundamental building block of reality

[Tuukka Virtaperko]

Mark,
> Hi Tuukka,
>
> Some little comments below to keep it lively.
>
> On 1/5/12, Tuukka Virtaperko<mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net>  wrote:
>> Mark,
>>
>>
>>> Mark said:
>>>
>>> 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.
>> Tuukka:
>> How is this MOQ different from phenomenology?
> Mark:
> This has nothing to do with phenomenology, although it can be used to
> explain phenomenology.  Quality generates experience.

Tuukka:
Okay, but the smell of food is something phenomenology would be about. 
So how come it has "nothing" to do with phenomenology? Isn't that an 
exagerration?

Basically, you seem to be saying only that besides "being" Quality, the 
smell of food is also "caused" by Quality. Now, why you want to say so?

>> I think the input is romantic quality and the rest of static quality is
>> classical quality.
> Mark:
> Yes, we can use this as a useful distinction to devide Quality up.  I
> have been reading your posts on that subject.  I did not want to
> derail your creation as it was happening, but I will respond to these.

Tuukka:
Okay, thank you I guess. I don't like people interfering with the 
creative process, so I appreciate this. They can help but I don't want 
them to disturb.

>>> Mark: Another answer would be that
>>> it is "qualities all the way down", which is the Buddhist approach to
>>> reality.
>> Tuukka:
>> This is a logical fallacy (turtles all the way down) and Dalai Lama said
>> that if science proves an aspect of Buddhism wrong, Buddhism will have
>> to change.
> Mark:
> Being a scientist, I believe science should change, not Buddhism.  In
> fact science always does change so if we have to change Buddhism to
> meet the demands of science, then it will be of a different flavor
> every five years.  No, Buddhism cannot change, something has to be an
> anchor (if we have to choose between the two), otherwise we revert
> back to relativism.  Also, Buddhism does not have to change since it
> does not have to abide by Western thought.  However, for Buddhism to
> take hold of the West, it does have to change its analogies a bit.
> Emptiness and Nothingness means something completely different here in
> the West.  Nobody wants to be Empty of Money, do they?

Tuukka:

Nice way of dismissing Dalai Lama there. But maybe he's just some old 
homophobic. :D

But a Karma Kagyu teacher told me that nothingness and allness are the 
same thing. Nothing wrong with allness of money. So here we get to the 
same point with the Western Greeks who thought that absence of A and B 
is the same thing as both A and B.

Just out of curiosity, what's your branch of science?

I think that being so Eastern, Dalai Lama doesn't care about empirical 
science as an adversary to Buddhism. He's only interested of logical 
proof or something like that. Deep down he knows there's very little 
science can do to make such demands of change in Buddhism that must be 
obeyed. Even in metaphysics, you can't really prove a metaphysical 
doctrine wrong. You can just point out it's silly or arbitrary or stuff 
like that.

And no, the notion that Buddhism could change does not get us to 
relativism. Speaking of absolutism and relativism is just another 
instance of subject--object-metaphysics. Another such instance is 
determinism and nondeterminism. In MOQ, we should speak of 
self-determinism, like Langan does.

>>> Mark:
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>> Tuukka:
>>
>> John Wheeler was a scientist from the West, and he said a reality theory
>> may not be linear, but rather, a self-excited circuit. See pages 8-11 of
>> the following paper if interested:
>>
>> www.iscid.org/papers/Langan_CTMU_092902.pdf
> Mark:
> Thanks for that.  Yes, I have followed Wheeler.  It is similar to God
> wanting to look at himself, that is why existence, and also, humanity
> was created.  (If God is everything, then why did he need to create
> anything?)  I have proposed a similar analogy for Ham's Essentialism.
> What you propose is a perpetual motion machine which is really what
> the universe is since no energy comes in or out, but work is done.

Tuukka:
Okay...

>> Basically, what I have done is to construct a Wheeler-style reality
>> theory of the MOQ. The problem with the linear model is you can't have
>> arbitrary axioms in a reality theory because that would beg the question.
> Yes, I agree with you whole-heartedly.  And yes, turtles all the way
> down is not satisfactory for some although it is entirely possible.
> The thing about logic and axioms is that at some place there have to
> be assumptions, whatever they may be.  Logic works in a circular
> manner so that the assumptions are proven through the logic which came
> from them.  (Please note, that I am not denegrating philosophy the
> same way in which Wittgenstein tried to).   Since any metaphysics is a
> creative process, this is not a problem.  That is, it is not a problem
> unless we want it to be more than that.  As I have said many times,
> there is nothing to find, but plenty to create.  This is dealt with on
> Page 33 of your link.  So, I say, onward with your Wheelerian MoQ!
>
> Did you know that life is a process of self-assembly?
>
> This all reminds me of the MC Escher print of a hand drawing itself.
> See http://www.mcescher.com/Gallery/back-bmp/LW355.jpg
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mark
>

Tuukka:
Okay! Thanks a lot, Mark! =)

-Tuukka