[MD] Ham's Value Rigidity?

[Ham Priday]

On Friday, June 15, 12:08 PM, "Ant McWatt" <antmcwatt at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:


> Ham responded June 13th 2012:
>
>> Ant, you'll note that my concept of Value is not restricted to SOM
>> ontology but is founded on an Absolute Source which overcomes
>> the perennial problems you cite.  Not all the great philosophers
>> were SOMists, by the way.  One you may not have heard of,
>> Nicholas of Cusa (15th C.), for example, postulated an "ineffable
>> unity" to which neither otherness nor multiplicity is opposed.
>>This theory makes it possible for philosophers to define in
>> metaphysical terms what is paradoxical in a relational system.
>
> Ant McWatt comments:
>
> Ham,
> I just like teasing the philosophologists when I make those sweeping
> statements about "great philosophers".
>
> Anyway, I had another look at your Essentialist essay as it wasn't
> totally clear to me what you trying to convey about Nicholas of Cusa
> in the above paragraph.  For the benefit of the other readers of this
> Discussion Board, this is what it says in your paper about him:

"In an obscure essay on mysticism, Andrey Smirnov of the Department of 
Oriental Philosophy at Russia's Academy of Sciences, explains how the 
mystics of Europe and Islam got around the inadequacy of definitions in 
describing a divinity or primary cause. 'The mystics understood the 
indefinableness of
God in a far wider sense than did other medieval philosophers and thinkers.
Indefinableness, as the mystics put it, traverses the limits of the 
indefinable in the sense of Aristotelian logic.  For anything to be 
indefinable per genus et differentiam does not exclude at all the 
possibility of description, and description is, of course, stating something 
definite about the thing described. But the indefinableness of God in a 
mystical sense comes in fact to be indefiniteness; that is, it rules out any 
definite proposition about the Divine essence.  Any such proposition means a 
sort of limitation imposed on the Divine, while the latter is incompatible 
with any limit. The ontological unlimitedness of God entails for a mystic an 
epistemological indefiniteness: any assertion about God would then be only 
metaphorical and would not serve as an established basis of knowledge.' [8]

"Faced with these descriptive limitations, Nicholas of Cusa [a.k.a. Cusanus, 
1401-1464] developed a theory based on the "not-other" as a symbolic 
connotation for God. Cusanus argues that, although God is indefinable, it 
can be stated that the world is not God but is not anything other than God. 
In Nicholas’ own words: 'The first principle cannot be other either than an 
other or than nothing and likewise is not opposed to anything.'  God is 'not 
other', he asserts, because God is not other than any [particular] other, 
even though 'not-other' and 'other' [once derived] are opposed.  But no 
other can be opposed to God from whom it is derived.  The significance of 
Cusa's theory is profound. It has afforded philosophers a most valuable 
metaphysical tool—namely, a definition for the ineffable Source whose 
attributive nature is indefinable.

"Professor Clyde Miller of Stony Brook University's Philosophy Department 
has formalized Cusa's theory as a logical proposition: 'For any given 
non-divine X, X is not other than X, and X is other than not X. What is 
unique about
the divine not other is precisely that it is not other than either X or not 
X
('cannot be other than'—'is not opposed to anything'). The transcendent 
not-other thus undercuts both the principles of non-contradiction and of the 
excluded middle.' [9] The simple analogy of an ordinary drinking glass may 
help us understand the Cusan not-other. The inside of the glass is not its 
outside, and the outside is not its inside; yet, at the same time the glass 
is not other than either of its sides. Not-other is the coincidence of all 
otherness, including nothingness and contrariety."

==========================

> Ant McWatt comments:
>
> Now, keeping the above in mind, read Paul Turner's description of the
> tetralemma of (Mahayana) Buddhist logic:
>
"To put this in the context of the MOQ, conventional truth applies
to static reality and its difference from and relationship to
Dynamic Quality. As such, the positive tetralemma would be
used to express the reality of subjects, objects, and so on and
their strictly static existence whilst acknowledging their lack
of individual essence entailed by their dependence on Dynamic
Quality. Ultimate truth thus applies to the 'preintellectual  perspective’
of Dynamic Quality. The negative tetralemma would be used to
prevent any intellectual  treatment of Dynamic Quality as a putative 
metaphysical ‘entity’ of which properties and attributes may be
predicated."
>
> An example of a positive tetralemma, in MOQ terms, is:
>
> The self is real (i.e., it exists in static reality along with
> everything else we derive from experience)
>
> The self is not real (from a Dynamic perspective)
>
> The self is both real and not real (it is real from a static
> perspective but not from a Dynamic perspective)
>
> The self is neither real nor not real (neither ultimately real from
> a Dynamic perspective nor completely non-existent from a static
> perspective)
>
> The negative tetralemma is a hard-nosed formulation of the
> inexpressibility of Dynamic Quality. An example would be
> its treatment of the proposition that "Dynamic Quality
> exists in time."
>
> "Dynamic Quality exists in time" should not be asserted.
>
> "Dynamic Quality does not exist in time" should not be asserted.
>
> "Dynamic Quality both does and does not exist in time"
> should not be asserted
>
> "Dynamic Quality neither does nor does not exist in time"
> should not be asserted
>
> The negative tetralemma is purely about what can't be said about
> Dynamic Quality. And, basically, nothing can be said.
> But even one who is aware of that may make mistakes.

(Extract from Paul Turner's summary of the Tetralemma found at
http://robertpirsig.org/Tetralemma.htm

=======================================================

> Now, it strikes me here that Professor Miller (in his formalisation of
> Cusa's Theory) has just re-invented the negative tetralemma, 1700 years
> after the fact. I'd be interested to hear what you (or anyone else for 
> that
 > matter) thinks about this similarity.

Ant, you and Paul would appear to be awash in a sea of logical 
contradictions, most of them unnecessary even for the academician.

Cusa's first principle of coincidence vs. contrariety is not a really a 
contradiction, nor does Professor Miller's logical analysis construct a 
Tetralemma, despite the "similarity" you have observed.  Both theorists were 
simply defining two different reality systems: differentiated existence 
(which Cusa calls "otherness") and the ultimate (transcendent) reality 
(which he calls God or the "not-other").

What causes confusion about Mahayana logic as well as DQ/sq paradigms is the 
reader's failure to distinguish these two realities.  For example, when you 
state that the self is both "real" and "not real", you are contrasting two 
perspectives -- the experiential in which the self is an 'existent' and the 
absolute in which existents do not factor.  This is why I have adopted the 
convention of using "existence" when referring to things and processes that 
occur in time and space, reserving Essence for unconditional (uncreated) 
Value or Sensibility.

Additional confusion plagues the MoQ due to the unfortunate use of "static" 
for a relational world that is in continual flux or transition, while 
"Dynamic" designates a constant that (according to the latest word from you) 
doesn't move.  If Quality must be defined by these terms, it would seem that 
they should be juxtaposed for the sake of clarity..

> Ham continued June 13th:
>
>> And, since you brought it up, I'd like to explore what you
>> characterize as my "value rigidity"  is-a-vis Pirsig's "expanded
>> understanding" of value.
>
> Ant McWatt comments:
>
> Well, Ham you stated (on June 8th):
>
>> I don't consider the movements of astral bodies or quantum
>> particles to be "value responses". Physical objects behave
>> according to the laws of physics.  Although such laws may have
>> teleological value for humans, objects lack the sensory capacity
>> to respond to value, so to call their behavior "value-driven" or
>> a "response to value" corrupts the meaning of  value and
>> demeans the term in my opinion.
>
> As such, in your Essentialist universe (as it stands now) you have
> one realm (the physical) which is "value-free" and at least one other
> (the human) which is not. The consequence of which is that you're
> led back to all the old SOM metaphysical problems (such as the
> mind-matter problem) that Pirsig elucidates in Chapter 8 of LILA.

That is a misunderstanding of my ontology.  Since the physical world of 
existence is a construct of value-sensibility, it cannot be "value free". 
And, to the extent that the mind, or consciousness, is a function of both 
Value and Sensibility, it is distinguished only from objective otherness 
only by its proprietary self-awareness -- the locus of thought and 
experience.

----cut----

> Ant McWatt comments:
>
> OK, as far as I'm reading you (and remember I have a Ph.D.
> in The MOQ; not Essentialism) it appears that you're missing
> one important logical step here; i.e. you're not stating that this
> "idea of an individual" is just simply that; even if it's a high quality
> idea that (usually) works.

I don't define individual subjects or objects as "ideas", not only because 
it suggests Platonic Idealism, but because the proprietary subject is the 
agent without which there is no experience. (Even Pirsig, who denies 
subjects and does not refer to agents, has given experience an importanr 
role in his thesis.)

> Moreover, by talking about a "transcendent connection", this seems
> to me to separate DQ from the everyday world and return us to
> a sort of "God sitting on his throne" conception of the Absolute.
> I just don't think that's as metaphysically consistent as the MOQ
> though, of course, the term "Dynamic Quality" is used in more than
> one sense in the latter (including "being inspired").

Yes, value-sensibility is our link to the transcendent source I call 
Essence.
I think your problem is my positing of Essence above Value (Quality).  This 
may be a simple matter of linguistics; however I find it difficult to 
conceive of an aesthetic attribute as a creator

-------cut---------

Ham replying to Ant's question "did you see any of these nuts [meaning 
Islamic extremists] on your recent visit to Chincoteague Island? :

>> No, but I did see a lot of road signs warning that "Jesus is coming"
>> and advising that "He is the only way to Heaven".  (Chincoteague is
>> a predominantly Christian town.)
>
> Ant McWatt comments:
>
> Well then, I hope you're giving Obama your support?!

Certainly not!  And what is the relevance of Christianity to Obama, pray 
tell?  (Frankly, I'm not sure he's Christian.and have my doubts he's even 
American.)

-------cut---------

> Ham asked:

>> And do you think establishing the U.N. has improved inter-cultural
>> understanding and led to a more peaceful and secure world?
>
> Ant McWatt's final comment:
>
> My inclination is to say yes, on the whole, but I'm no historian
> as far as the UN is concerned. However, if it eventually follows
> the example of the European Union (which, despite all its faults, has
> secured peace between all its members since World War Two)
> then it certainly will do.

The first problem encountered in the history of human civilization was the 
development of the sovereign state.  It remains a challenge, although most 
of the problems can be resolved by consensus.  Global governance, in my 
opinion, would be the end of civilization and a total disaster for mankind. 
I hope I'm long gone before it happens.

Cheers,
Ham