Hi Bo --
Darwin's evolution theory is science and I "..leave unto science
what science's is". It's when it comes to how life emerged in the
first place that MOQ's adds something useful. The dynamic
"dislike" of inorganic stability resulted in biological stability, which
in
turn resulted in social stability, and - finally - intellectual stability.
I find it curious that you (i.e., Pirsig) exhort "instability", while the
rest of mankind is desperately looking for a way to make the world more
stable -- scientifically, socially, economically, internationally,
militarily. Isn't this going against the central premise that "the dynamic
'dislike' of biological stability" is what inexorably moves the world to
"betterness"? If so, how do you market the philosophy of dynamic
instability to world torn by instability? Should you even try?
[Ham, previously]:
Difference is negated from Essence with no loss of absolute integrity.
The "aspects" of differentiation and the emergence of otherness in
space/time are precisely what Essence is NOT.
[Bo]:
This is a variety of the fallacious pure Quality of which MOQ is a
corruption, this is wrong: Quality IS the MOQ. I suggest that space,
time and everything that constitutes our existence are "static"
aspects of a "dynamic" Essence, but that would make
Essentialism a copy of the MOQ and I guess that's anathema-
Indeed, "pure Quality", like "pure Value", is fallacious, since they are
both relational. But you have it backwards, Bo. Only an MoQist would call
a developing series of events in time "static". If the world were static,
there could be no whirling electrons or energy exchanges to create
molecules, orbiting planets, bio-genetic processes, or living species. If
you need an example of a dynamic process, study the evolution of life forms
on this planet -- including the civilization of man. The physical universe
and everything in it has been in constant flux since the big bang. Nothing
in existence is stable or static, from a rock in the desert to the history
of mankind. Only Essence is static.
But would there be any Essence without "man"? Course not and in
that case Essence is a fallout of Man and and Metaphysics of Man
(MOM) is called for. ...
Your rhetorical question reveals what may well be the crux of our dispute.
Man is only a transient observer with no essential reality. What he senses
is the value of Essence. Everything else is a finite construct of his
organic sensibilities. Inasmuch as man is estranged from Essence, his
existence as a being-aware is but a passing phase of ultimate reality. So
your answer is wrong. Man's existence is derived from Essence and is
conditionally dependent on it. Only Essence is uncreated, independent, and
immutable.
Now let me return the question: Would there be any Quality without man?
(Give this some thought before you answer.) Remember that Pirsig refused to
define Quality, insisting that "we all know what it is." What if there was
no one to sense it, experience it, "know" it? Where or what would Quality
or Value be in the absence of a sensible observer?
I am fully aware of Man's central role, so central that it can't be
part of argument or - as said a billion times - a MOM is needed,
and IMO as a copy of the MOQ ... fine with me,
it's the Dynamic/Static and static levels that counts.
As said before, without change no pattern could form. Even discerning a
pattern is a process in time. Existence is a dynamic relational system
derived from an uncreated source which has no relations nor a need to
change.
SOM's "final world" Immanuel Kant postulated that time, space,
causation is "the world for us" while the "inherent properties of the
the universe" (world in itself) is out of reach. This you seemingly
subscribe to, something that makes you an inhabitant of MOQ's
intellectual level, i.e. not the ultimate vantage point.
Kant was right that time, space and causation represent man's world.
However, I would argue that the world is not out of reach, since we "reach
out to it" every day through experience and all our knowledge comes from it.
What Kant, and the existentialists who followed him, failed to understand is
that there is no "in" or "out", and that what they called the
"world-in-itself" is actually the experiential world that each self
actualizes.
I have no illusions about the two of us converting each other, but
it's interesting and compared to some moqists you are a true
philosopher.
Thanks for the compliment, Bo. I try, in my own way, but so far there have
been no known converts to Essentialism.
Yours essentially,
Ham
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