John said to Marsha: suppose an infinite continuum spewed forth energy into a cosmos, some of the energy would be chaotic and some would fall into patterns just out of the random chance produced in such an infinite continuum and thus some patterns would crystalize and evolve and others would be undifferentiated blobs. In such a cosmos, differentiated and undifferentiated would arise as you describe, but the differentiated would at heart be nothing significant beyond what random chance produces and thus the best description of the whole would be "undifferentiated" with illusory aspects of differentiation apparent to consciousness (which is itself one of those crystalized, patterned energy blobs).
dmb says:Let me butt in here, eh? In this context, differentiated and undifferentiated do not refer to physical states or any kind of thing. They refer to modes of consciousness or categories of experience. In other words, they're epistemological terms, not ontological terms. It seems a bit weird at first but the MOQ doesn't really have a foundation like that. The idea of a physical universe is not a bad idea, but the MOQ will insist that it's just an idea. Like subjects and objects, this concept is derived from experience. The modern materialist mythos makes it seem downright crazy at first. But that's exactly the problem. Radical empiricism rejects an assumed premise that's so basic and common sensical in our culture that it's hard to even see it AS an assumption. This was exactly the mistake that the positivists made. They're the most pristine example of a traditional empiricist. Their main goal was to seek objective truth free of any such and yet they were rejecting whole categories of human experience for metaphysical reasons, not for empirical reasons. Anyway, the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum, DQ, the primary empirical reality, or whatever terms suits your fancy, is not about energy blobs or chaotic spews. It's direct experience, pure experience. In that sense, it refers to something you already know. Artists are usually especially attuned to this cutting edge of experience. Otherwise, you're just painting by numbers. You know? _________________________________________________________________ Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail®. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_QuickAdd_062009 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/
