Ahoy, Bo --
Here follows part 2: You had said: "If you're implying that words are useless, why are we talking? Language is only the tool of social communication -- certainly not the ground of existence. Subjective awareness isn't the ground of existence, either, but it's the sensible locus of experience that defines it." I merely pointed to language as IT ALL and as such it must be suspended. I challenge you to show me a reality outside of language. And if so language must either recede from the scene or a language metaphysics must be established. Language as a social tool is correct, but only possible inside the MOQ where there is a social level.
This semiotic notion of reality, which you confuse with Intellect, is the least intellectual of any philosophy I have come across. If there is no reality but language, we are about as meaningful as a dictionary on the shelf. Who do you suppose invented language anyway? I would rather that you were a pure objectivist than advance such an ontology.
When you - who reject the level tenet - speak about intellect it's not the 4th level, but SOM's subject who monitors what goes on outside ourselves (it can even direct its attention to its own thoughts) What role "value" plays in this scenario may be as you say, but it has little to do with MOQ's 4th. level whose very VALUE is this subject/object split.
My dear Bo, "intellect" is only the human capacity for processing intelligence, whether applied to the mental functions of an individual or the historical record of collective thought. It's a "lifeless" word akin to "dialectic" or "logic" in philosophy, and it bears little resemblance to proprietary consciousness or sensibility which is the psychic core of experience. I'm constantly amazed at how readily you folks dismiss the most fundamental and self-evident reality in life -- subjective awareness!
The MOQ's idea is that before the 4th. level (when the social level was "leading edge") there were no S/O distinctions and you don't find much talk about ... "being-aware is what we ARE ...etc. in the few ancient (pre-intellect) texts there are. In Homer's "Iliad" for instance you won't find any references to awareness, thoughts, ideas, my opinion ...and such, it's all emotions, about fury and courage and semi-gods with fantastic qualities, but these aren't said to me supernatural, this hasn't yet come to be. In this case you are forced to deem the ancient people to be ignorant of the true S/O context. ...
No, I am not. I see that Krimel commented on this "evolutionary emergence" hypothesis before I got to it. He makes a good point. The archaic phrase "My heart was black with rage" was the ancient Greeks' way of expressing the hateful state of their conscious awareness relative to the "object" -- in this case a vengeful person. But does such language mean that the Greeks weren't sensible of their subjectivity as individual human beings? How can one be "emotional" and not realize it as proprietary awareness? Today we might describe this as a feeling of "disgust" or great "disappointment". Some philosophers might even call it "negative value". But few beyond this forum would try to express such sensibility in an "intellectual" syntax.
... Not so with the MOQ, they were as intelligent as ourselves only their premises were the 3rd. level's. With the Greek thinkers the intellectual premises slowly emerged and began their march to power and now Ham Priday is dead sure that these are the last word.
Warfare is a social (3rd level, if you must) strategy. Today's military commanders don't speak of "minds", "subjects" or "objects", either, yet they're well aware of enemy troups as subjective individuals collectively carrying out the orders of a leader.
Ham on Essentialism: Well, Bo, thus far I've avoided bringing it up because you didn't want to discuss it, but Essentialism is a new metaphysics. I don't call it a "subject" metaphysics, although it is definitely more subjective than objective. It posits Sensibility and Being as One in Essence, and it is based on Cusa's first principle which is the "coincidence of contrariety". Existence is the actualized or "differentiated mode" of Essence.
[Bo]:
It isn't new, it's SOM's subjective side coming to the fore, and as said, from its premises the subjective side has the stronger hand and I would have been "your man" had I not known the MOQ.
Existence is "the real world" for us, Bo. As such, the "SOM side" is always operative. We cannot escape it. It's not only in the foreground and background of our experience, it is the very nature of our being in the world. Only in metaphysical conceptions can we intuit the ultimate reality of experiential existence.
Thanks for asking. The dynamic/static relationship is best visualized by the ocean/wave metaphor. The static levels are water too, but it's the wave form as different from the surface it rises above that matters. The inorganic level may be likened to a gigantic swell, with the biological a smaller - yet big - wave on top of it and so on upwards.
As I understand your analogy, the constantly lapping waves of the surf represent "Static", while the motionless, unbroken body of water beneath them is called "Dynamic". WHY? This seeming reversal of labels makes no sense -- as your allegory clearly demonstrates.
"Transcendent" indicates some otherworldly quality, the upper level surely transcends the lower, but not in the said sense, they are of water too. "Differentiated"? Absolutely, but with the same qualification of being water. "Definable versus undefinable". Yes, that's the point, only the waves have form, the ocean is formless.
This parallels the platonic world of Form (ideas) and Substance (being) in which one one partakes of the other to shape physical reality. In that sense, Platonism and the MoQ have duality in common. Your statement that "transcendent" suggests an "otherworldly quality" is quite true, but it is what encompasses both the absolute Source and its differentiated appearance. I could accept DQ as the primary Source and its patterns (SQ) as differentiated existence, if the terms static and dynamic were reversed. However, neither Quality nor Value qualifies as the Source, since they require a subjective agent for realization. [Ham's Axiom #1: Unrealized value is a logical absurdity.]
I know this indicates an observer, not least regarding the MOQ which sees it all from above, but one can't avoid - I guess it's - Godel's Theorem. Your Essentialism will also at some point encounter it.
"Sees it all from above" is a transcendent concept with deistic implications. Do you (or Pirsig) mean to suggest that DQ is a sentient being or entity? Again, I can (and do) accept Sensibility as inherent to the absolute Source, but Essence is undifferentiated and thus "sees all as ONE". [Cusanus: The first principle is the coincidence of contrariety.]
Yes, DQ is immutable and unchanging and with and the same static essence levels you'd have a winner, a MOE.
And yet you call it DYNAMIC!? By what logic do you justify that label? Evidently, by the same logic that defines an emerging world in flux "STATIC". Thanks for the explanation, Bo, but it still makes no sense to me. Possibly it would help if you could point me to a Pirsig quote in which he acknowledges DQ as the a priori source, creator, potentiality, progenitor, or fundamental ground of existence.
We do make progress. An exchange like this would have been impossible a year ago (I forgot when you joined) your criticism of the MOQ is more worth than many ..... enough said!
I've been participating on the MD at least since 2003. It took six years to digest enough of the MoQ to voice an intelligent criticism. I fear it will take far longer to convince you that my criticisms are justified.
Still hoping to be essentially yours, 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/
