Craig said:
The view that humans create reality could be embarassing.
dmb says:
It certainly isn't the common view but that's the point isn't it? The MOQ is
supposed to offer an alternative to the common view, especially with respect to
"objective" reality. "We invent earth and heavens," Pirsig says, "stones and
oceans, gods, ..civilization and science". In Lila he expresses the same notion
by way of James's radical empiricism, wherein subjects and objects are seen as
derived concepts rather than primary things or substances. Here's how it puts
it in ZAMM:
"In our highly complex organic state we advanced organisms respond to our
environment with an invention of many marvelous analogues. We invent earth and
heavens, trees, stones and oceans, gods, music, arts, language, philosophy,
engineering, civilization and science. We call these analogues reality. And
they are reality. We mesmerize our children in the name of truth into knowing
that they are reality. We throw anyone who does not accept these analogues into
an insane asylum. But that which causes us to invent the analogues is Quality.
Quality is the continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create
the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it.""Now, to take that
which has caused us to create the world, and include it within the world we
have created, is clearly impossible. That is why Quality cannot be defined. If
we do define it we are defining something less than Quality itself.""I remember
this fragment more vividly than any of the others, po
ssibly because it is the most important of all. When he wrote it he felt
momentary fright and was about to strike out the words "All of it. Every last
bit of it." Madness there. I think he saw it. But he couldn't see any logical
reason to strike these words out and it was too late now for faintheartedness.
He ignored his warning and let the words stand."
"Now it comes! Because Quality is the generator of the mythos. That's it.
That's what he meant when he said, "Quality is the continuing stimulus which
causes us to create the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of
it." Religion isn't invented by man. Men are invented by religion. Men invent
responses to Quality, and among these responses is an understanding of what
they themselves are. You know something and then the Quality stimulus hits and
then you try to define the Quality stimulus, but to define it all you've got to
work with is what you know. So your definition is made up of what you know.
It's an analogue to what you already know. It has to be. It can't be anything
else. And the mythos grows this way. By analogies to what is known before. The
mythos is a building of analogues upon analogues upon analogues. These fill the
collective consciousness of all communicating mankind. Every last bit of it.
...He knew that to understand Quality he would have to leav
e the mythos. That's why he felt that slippage. He knew something was about to
happen."
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