[Horse] I'm not sure where we are disagreeing here - or even if we are disagreeing!
[Arlo] In the end, I think we agree, likely some of this is semantic, and may be because I resist the word "illusion" apart from using it to dethrone the primacy of "subjects" and "objects" are existential "things". Personally, I am not sure saying 'everything but DQ is an illusion' works, as it leads to the same unsatisfactory position that Pirsig encountered when he asked about the atomic bombs being "illusions". By your answer, I take it you do consider those bombs and the destruction they wrought to be 'illusions'. As such it is not that everything becomes an "illusion", but that we redefine what is "real'. Certainly, if we ask if the patterns of the MOQ are "real" in an existential, SOM sense, the answer is "no". But if we instead ask if the patterns of the MOQ are "real" in an experiential, empirical sense, then the answer is "yes, they are very real". In other words, what is "real" is that which has "value", which means it is something we experience. In Pirsig's formulation, as he points out, this makes social and intellectual patterns as real as rocks and trees. Certainly, confusing the menu with the food is an "illusion", but I don't think a MOQ commits this mistake, but it doesn't avoid it by making the menu an illusion, but by making them different patterns of value, both real because of their value (one for its sustenance, one for its ability to lead us to that sustenance). I think if you asked, from an SOM position, "is love real?", you'd get the answer "no, it has not independent existential beingness, so it is not real", but if you asked this from a MOQ position, the answer would be "yes, love is very real because has empirical, experiential value". I think if we start with the basic SOM idea that "inorganic" and "biological" things are "real" and that "social" and "intellectual" things are illusions, you tend to think a MOQ resolves this by making I/B patterns also illusions, while I tend to think it resolves this by making S/I patterns real... because it redefines "real" away from existential beingness and into empirical value. In this regard, I think you are using the word "real" as it meant in GOF SOM, namely "existentially real". If this is the case, then yes, everything would be an illusion. If you are seeing the question about the bombs as asking about their existential reality, then yes they were illusions. But, if we consider "real" as "empirically real", then the answer is of course they were real. The primary empirical reality of all those people was drastically altered, and the explosions and subsequent suffering and sickness and pain and devastation were absolutely, one-hundred percent real. Anyway, that's how I see it. 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
