> Ham (stating the obvious): > You should know that I am a renegade in this forum
MP: LoL. And you should know I read the A LOT of the archives before posting, so was more prepared for the onslaught than perhaps you (or others?) imagined. I kind knew what I'd get from whom. I was wondering if you were on vacation or something. I'd be kidding myself if I thought I could post on *any* online forum/ls and not find personal conflict. > > ham wrote: > > Value is the measure of a thing's relative worth or significance. > > The Greek philosopher Protagoras said "Man is the measure of all things, of > the existence of things that are and of the non-existence of things that are > not." That precisely expresses my position. Of the things that we are > aware of, man determines the value or quality of any one relative to all the > others. MP: Ah! Yes. But to what does Man owe this ability to value? I read recently that the ability of man to moralize (not just valuate) is actually now being shown to be biological and unique to man. This *cannot* be a random coincidence when you consider that the value is always pointing in a *particular* direction, and with MoQ's insights that its not just animate objects/q-patterns that do it. There's something else going on that is *way* beyond our intellect to discern, and we are a key part of it. But MoQ is IMO a *seminal* moment in humanity's evolution: objectively understood value *outside* man. We've done it before (theism) but this time we've done it (ok, Mr. Pirsig did it!) rationally. > > MP: > > Pondering mel's words against ham's quest, I can't help > > but feel that "value" as understood by Pirsig is not "value" > > in the traditional comparative sense. Seeking to find a word > > to adequately describe it may be like asking a child to draw > > a picture of perfection. ... > > Ham: > That's a good analogy. Not even an adult artist can illustrate perfection. > Of course Pirsig himself didn't portray the universe as "perfect"; he only > said it was a "moral" system evolving to "betterness". Who or what, > exactly, is the measure of that betterness? And if Quality is the creator > or source of the universe, why wasn't it created "perfectly good" from the > start? This doesn't seem to concern Mr. Pirsig who, perhaps because of his > early readings on anthropology, is more interested in its biological and > sociological evolution. He has "overcome" the subject/object division of > common experience by positing "man" as a collection of interrelating > patterns, whereas I accept the duality and view man as the individuated > locus of awareness with a unique sense of value and the intellectual > capacity to think and act as an independent choicemaker. MP: I'm not sure where I fall out yet, I'm still trying to wrap my head around what I've learned from Buddhism and Taoism let alone MoQ. Plus I'm not a philosopher by education, so that's slowing me down too. I keep getting some deceased thinker's name thrown at me and that means reading another book. They are stacking up quickly. I will say though, that I'm seeing a LOT of patterns matching up among all of these and what I know of g*d. I just keep learning, thinking, talking while waiting for the "seed moment." > > MP: > > But the inability to fully understand or describe something > > using human intellect which is beyond the capacity of human > > intellect does not mean it doesn't exist. > > Ham: > I couldn't agree more. But, you see, this would require metaphysical > speculation which the author shuns because "definitions" would destroy his > allegorical exposition. MP: And IMO why religions relied on faith; they couldn't explain it, but *knew* it nonetheless, and used the tools they had to manifest it into practice. Crude, but at the time, effective. It got us here, after all. Science would not exist but for religion, ironically. > > MP: > > And back to ham's quest for a proper foundation; > > maybe there is no such thing because we are using the > > wrong tool (human intellect.) Maybe we can only > > approximate it with that tool and have to let the rough edges > > be there. Put it another way; reality is doing *something* > > that we can (so far) only best describe as "Quality that needs > > no comparative to exist." It makes no sense called that, > > but only because we can't make sense of it (yet?) > > Ham: > Maybe what we're all looking for isn't Quality or Value at all. Maybe value > is all that finite human beings can sense of something far greater -- say, > an Absolute Source whose sensibility and value cannot be reduced to > relational properties and attributes? MP: If it weren't for the fact that I like to remain open minded while learning, I'd say emphatically "yes!" I think, though that the term "Absolute Source" implies a panentheist (v. pantheistic) POV, where it may be more fruitful to foster an understanding of this "s*urce" to include that we don't really know whether it is one or the other, or that the distinction even makes any sense at that point. > Is a theist any more open to such a concept than a Qualitarian? We shall > soon see. MP: Oi. No pressure, though. ;-) Thought of another analogy (you'll see I like them) today driving (8 hrs on the road gives one a lot of time to contemplate the universe): Theists and Scientists arguing about which has the best grip on reality is like a robin and a mouse arguing about who of them controls the house; the robin says its him because he's on the roof and the house can't fly away while he sits there, the mouse says it her because she's in its walls and when the house crawls away, she'll always be with it. Little do they notice the MoQ cat in the house by the open window observing them both, lazily contemplating which would be easier to digest, all the while sitting on a newspaper open to "free puppy" ads that the homeowner left by the window when he got up to clean the "d*mn cat's" poop off the carpet again and pay his long overdue mortgage, tax and utility bills before the repo man comes. I'd rather think we are *all* willing to be as open as possible and what matters is not who's best at it, but that we are all pursuing discussion in the interest of greater understanding, not something less. There's lots of windows in the house, and while each has a different view, or looks a different way, they do *all* look outside. > Thanks for adding a refreshing new POV to the foray, Michael. MP: Thanks for the support, and I'm pleased to have the opportunity to hash this sort of stuff out with a group that takes their intellectualism straight iced. My friends and family can't take my babbling anymore. ;-) 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/
