Hi All, While reading some of the MOQ posts which deal with physics (my favorite metaphysics), I came across a question from Marysonthego concerning that which is in between, "not this, not that". This is where I will start.
Let's say I have been traveling the High Country, or maybe it's the Low Country, anyway, nothing grandiose, just too many late nights, too much coffee, too much reading and reorganizing and going full circles. However, I would like to post on Quality. Now, I'm sure there is nothing new about this post, probably been discussed before in this forum, but it is something I would like to open (again?) to discussion (and, yes, criticism). My thoughts are, in part due to contemplation of the Buddhist notion of co-dependent arising. That is, that there is no independent arising. This is often called Emptiness of independent arising (although, in my opinion, Emptiness has way too many connotations and is useless as an expressive noun). Then again, I am no expert on Buddhism, don't have the time. So, codependent arising... Now Quality, according to semantic restrictions, cannot exist without comparison. What I mean is, if I go to the market to pick out some apples of high quality, I need to be able to compare the apples that I see. If there is only one apple, then I compare it to something in my mind's eye. This Quality is Relational (not to be confused with Relative). When discerning quality, I am noting the difference between things which somehow ties them together. Please note: I am speaking of Quality, not Value which is a whole 'nother thing that we can get into later (all the subjectivism stuff). We innately view the world to be composed of many separated things, at least when we try to compose our experiences. Our perspective of Quality is to relate these things. The Quality itself does not reside in these things themselves, but in their differences. Quality is an aspect of separation, not something inherent. By this view, objects (or ideas, or emotions, or systems, or ontologies, etc) cannot contain Quality in themselves, for to do so they would have to have arisen independently. One cannot speak of a person as having Quality, or indeed there being patterns of Quality. One cannot speak of levels of Quality but instead of what has separated such levels. Again, nothing can contain Quality, it is not a thing, or an attribute. It is very real, but unmeasurable To skip ahead, Quality can be viewed as golden strands which connect objects (or concepts, or systems, etc), which appear differentiated. These strands can appear static, or ever stretching and contracting in a dynamic way. These strands compose much more of our experience that those simple physical objects or ideas. Now, I have been told that it is possible to exist for long periods of time in some kind of mystical intellectual state where nothing is differentiated. Perhaps this is living in Quality. Perhaps not. It would appear from some posts that Quality is antagonized by SOM. Perhaps this may have to be, because SOM deals directly with objects and the viewer (another object), and there is no way around this if we are to discuss such things. By my interpretation, what we experience for most of the day (and night) is SOM free. It only becomes SOM when our neurons get ahold of it and try to reduce it to an expressive form. The little that we do convert to SOM, is what we talk about. However most of our experience is SOM free, we just do not remember it because it hasn't been transcribed into memorable SOM (and memory is overrated). It is all that which happens in between, our outside of, our reductionist thoughts. If this is indeed 99% of our existence, then we do live in Quality for most of the time. Imagine Quality as that which separates and holds together. It is not inherent within, but without. It is In Between and encompassing. Cheers, 118 AKA Mark AKA WillBlake2 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/md/archives.html
