Squonk --? ? Frankly, I didn't expect to be talking to you again after my comments in the last post. But now that you've classified your experiment as a project for "stimulating thought" and not a hoax, I'm even more vehemently opposed to the conclusions you have drawn.
Hi Ham, Good. I look forward to reading them - this is what it's about. ? Ham: You seem to be suggesting that the life experience has no purpose or meaning beyond its (theoretical) attachment to Dynamic Quality, and that "jump-starting" the path to DQ will lead to some utopian "buzz" (to borrow from the acid-head vernacular). In effect, rather than supporting Pirsig's Quality thesis, you want to build consensus for the proposition that life has no value. This is mindless nonsense. Without the participation of a sensible agent in the relational world, there is no experience of value. s: Individual?life experiences, from God's eye view,?are on a road leading to DQ according to Pirsig are they not? For many people, DQ is God. That patterns can jump straight to DQ (God) is an moq fact: It is associated with degenerate behaviour because it's too free. TE1 sets out a rather bizarre set of condition which allow a jump straight to DQ (God) while allowing the top level of moq evolution to progress unhindered. The internal logic of the moq?would have to explicitly disallow this, and i don't know if it can? I don't mean this personally Ham, please take it as self deprecatory also:?Your life experiences and my life experiences are dreadfully important to us, but this is because we are compelled to struggle and survive, and our pleasures reward the struggle. But in a grand scheme our life experiences may become insignificant, which feels bad, but that may be because humans?are?structured to regard themselves as the most important things in the cosmos. Ham: Since we've had no previous discussions, let me be clear as to my philosophical position. I view the central idea of the MoQ as the realization of Value, whether it is conceived as hierarchical or essential. Pirsig used Quality as a synonym for Value, but fell short of defining it as the fundamental essence of reality. In my philosoophy of Essentialism, existence is a self/other dichotomy in which being interrupted by nothingness is the "apparent" reality created by Value (Value being the bond that holds the dichotomy together). s: We have in fact had previous discussions, but i was nasty to you so you quite rightly shunned my posts after a time. I've turned over a new leaf since then. Re. your philosophical position: If i have a handle on this, value is not the?essence of reality - the dichotomy is, because it generates value. Is that right? I'm not complaining, but we've moved from?considering whether?TE1 is moral on moq terms to whether TE1 is moral on Ham's essentialist terms. ? Ham: I also maintain that existence is amoral, and that the esthetic realization of good and evil is a subjective function of the individual organism. In other words, we bring Value into being by virtue of our psycho-organic sensibility, or what Pirsig would call "pre-intellectual experience". To me, this is the very purpose of human life, as demonstrated by the individual struggle to survive and flourish, the rise of collective civilizations, and the innate ability of man to gain control over his environment. s: Well, if one wished to be genuinely critical of the moq one would have to explore contrary positions, so?at the very least your thesis has value. And i am happy to state clearly here that i value it?for this reason, and may?come to value it more as i explore it more deeply. ? Ham: Whether one interprets the life-experience as a "training ground" for some "hereafter", or a negational phase of Essence, this ontogeny clearly suggests a cosmic role for man as a value agent. Needless to say, a physical world that automatically "moves toward betterness", with or without man's participation, does not live up to my concept of an anthropocentric universe. This is what disappoints me about Pirsig's thesis. s:?I see. The experiment is an abomination for you then. I can't see an analogue for this experiment in Ham's essentialist terms, although it strikes me that the outcome of the experiment may be something similar to the teleological goal of?Ham's essentialist development? Here, value would be maximised in the coarse of things? ? Ham:? So, you can understand why isolating the individual from the experience of otherness as a means of acquiring something called DQ is abhorrent to me, even as a "thought experiment." It's the equivalent of castration, solitary confinement, and brain-death, all rolled into one. Human beingness is a psychic-organic contingency for whom all knowledge is derived from experience. Remove that experience and you create a breathing automaton without the capacity to realize value. s: Yes, i see that. I hope i have not given you nightmares?!!? ? Ham: At least the MoQ, properly defined, holds more hope for mankind than does your proposed abortion of experience. I respectfully suggest that you return to the drawing board and come up with a more "stimulating thought" experiment, perhaps one that celebrates the quality of life instead of an indefinable metaphor.? ? Sincerely,? Ham s: Thank you. I feel i need to point out one thing here Ham: Unmediated experience of DQ has been traditionally the experience attributed to God: God is every perfection. Many mystics have given themselves to this and considered material experience a shadow of suffering. >From certain philosophical traditions the TE1 may make sense. I understand it is an affront to your sensibilities. If the internal logic of the moq leads to abominations then maybe it's a good thing to be able to recognise this and discover if it may be possible to change the moq in order to avoid them or state the moq in such a way that it emphasises Human life. In the grand evolution of sq/DQ it seems clear to me that humans as we know them are going to enhance themselves with technologies in ways that will make them seem either superhuman or non-human. So, human.1 may be step on the way to human.2... squonk P.S. will give your essentialism more considered thought. 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/
