Marsha, Magnus, and All --
Marsha asked: > What is a pattern? Magnus answered: > Anything not DQ. > But the only thing these two answers really say is that > reality is divided into patterns and non-patterns. > What the MoQ has to add to this is that it is the most > important division of all possible divisions. [Marsha]: > What can you say about patterns besides 'they are > other than DQ'? Not much. That's because patterns are said to be "made of" that ephemeral stuff called "Quality". Pure Quality is not a thing, not an object, not a subject, but an attribute. An attribute OF WHAT? Normally we would think of quality as an attribute of a thing or event -- a measure of its worth or of its esthetic value relative to the observer. But not in the MoQ. There, DQ hangs above us like a cornucopia of bonbons, the unrealized source of eternal goodness. Can this be Reality? But, if Magnus is right that the division of reality into patterns is "the most important division of all possible divisions," then it must be fundamental to what we experience as reality. It must be a division of something intrinsic to both the observing subject and its objective object, a transcendent reality that holds the power to actualize existence. Marsha's question above provides a three-word key to the nature of this reality: "OTHER THAN DQ". In reality there is no other; otherness is only what we experience. What we experience is only a finite moment-to-moment reduction of the ultimate reality. So that what Pirsig has given us is a Quality-based scenario for experiential existence, not a metaphysical theory of Reality. Forget about patterns for a moment. Whatever the fundamental reality is, it cannot be "other than" ANYTHING. Back in the 15th century the logician Cusanus postulated his First Principle as the 'not-other', that ineffable unity "to which neither otherness nor multiplicity is opposed". That uncreated unity, which is manifested only as patterns of beingness, is the essential source of all difference. What Magnus calls the fundamental "division" and Bo refers to as the "DQ/SQ split" is what I "the negation of Essence". But, as I've often said, it isn't the terms we use but the concept we're trying to convey that's important. So, if you understand Pirsig's term "Quality" to mean the primary uncreated not-other, then you can understand what I mean by Essence. It's the primary source that actualizes 'difference' by splitting or dividing subjective awareness from objective otherness. Difference creates the dichotomy 'being-aware' which makes experience possible. It is the Value of Essence (Quality?) that we experientially "pattern" as differentiated otherness. But although we call these relational patterns Existence, and experience them as our self's 'other', in Reality there is no other, no pattern, no division, no difference, but only the ineffable unity by whatever name you choose to call it. Does this give you a better understanding of the Essential ontology and how it differs from the MoQ? Happy Mother's Day, Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
