Hi Ham, On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 12:52 PM, Ham Priday <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey, Mark -- > >> As you know, I am in tune with free choice. I would just not >> use it as an argument for creating morality. Our choice is in which >> morality to follow. In my sense of things, such morality already >> exists. The code of behavior is a rationalization of what would be >> termed an irrational awareness of an existing thing. I do not see >> the concept of imposition. Since we are Quality, there is not >> higher authority that I can think of. Perhaps this is a difference >> between my Quality and yours. >> >> Yes, Quality is a perfect entity, expressed perfectly in the moment. >> But I am fine with your otherness as well, since it can be reduced to >> the same thing. > > Let's assume that your Quality is what I mean by Value. (For that matter, > it could be Goodness, Betterness, or Virtue.)
[Mark] I am fine with that. > > Have you ever heard the old adage "Opposites attract"? [Mark] Like in Yin and Yang? > > For some time now, I've been trying to get across the point that we cannot > BE Quality and at the same time EXPERIENCE Quality. Experience is > individually differential in that we always experience what is other to us. > Thus, we don't experience our selves, per se; self-awareness is the > pre-intellectual awareness that WE are the cognizant locus of an "otherness" > reality, the "being" of which takes many forms. Beingness also is > differentiated by the properties of quality, quantity, and relation. And > (as I noted to Marsha) no single phenomenon or "thing" has these properties > in the same combination as any other. [Mark] Yes, and I fully understand your point, thus the need for separation. This is one thing I have been struggling with in order to present it in the most rational manner. This in many ways to the mind/body dichotomy. I have tried to bridge the gap with concepts of set theory. That is how a set can include itself without getting iterative? An example would be "the set of all sets". Since such a set must be included in itself, we have a logical problem. The same can be said with Quality experiencing Quality. I will accept that we cannot experience ourselves; this is why the "I" disappears on examination. That is that ephemeral thing that we call "I", separate from the body. For certainly we can experience our bodies, something that includes our brains and our thoughts. We therefore experience our thoughts and we are not our thoughts. So we have value, which is for the most part provided to us by our brains, yet we can witness such experience. Now I have heard it said that the infinite and, what I will call the soul, are manifestations of the same thing. In terms of your ontology, perhaps I could say that mini-Essence is experiencing absolute Essence. That is, Essence creates a satellite to experience itself. We have discussed this in the past, so I will not elaborate. Marsha would point to the notion of co-arisings, which is equally oblique. > > You yourself have observed that Difference is the sine qua non of existence. > Yet, when you say "we are Quality" and "otherness can be reduced to the same > thing", you equate the Quality, Value, or Virtue of otherness which attracts > to the self that is attracted. Since this is epistemologically impossible, > I have posited value-sensibility (quality-sensibility?) as the 'negate' in > the subject/object relationship, considering everything else as an > "existent'. While you challenge my negation theory to account for the > emergence of the negate, I return your challenge by asking how Subject A can > be attracted to Object A when both contingents are Quality. [Mark] Yes, that we sense difference requires existence. We do not actually know of the experience before this since it is not part of our physical memory. But one can extrapolate from common experiences what it might be. That is a world without differentiation. We arrive at such a thing in the moment since there is no time to differentiate. I understand the logical problems in epistemology with Value attracting itself. We certainly do see our selves in relation to other things, which is why I have brought in the concept of Relationalism into the MoQ. In many ways, when we interact with the quality of other, it is indeed part of us. We cannot directly experience such quality except as it presents itself to us though our senses. We are therefore experiencing our senses and not other. Your question at the end of the paragraph above is a good one, and I find that logic fails in answering such a thing (so far). Let me try an analogy, that of water. All water has the same make-up (let's just focus on the hydrogen and oxygen components). A lake flows to the ocean by means of a river. While this is not precisely "attraction" lets pretend it is. The ocean then feeds the lake through evaporation and precipitation. Therefore we have a complete self-sufficient cycle. The water itself does not know that it is part of a lake at one time or part of the ocean at another. Nor does it know that it flows between these things. As far as it knows, it is the same water. Yet, viewing it from the outside, we can stipulate that they are different bodies of the same thing. If one views Quality from the outside, as we are trying to do, we can say that there is a difference between our personal sense of being quality, and the overall concept of Quality. When we get down to the personal, however, we cannot see such differentiation. This may be why mystics (AKA Eckhart) claim complete unity. Logic depends on making distinctions and therefore does not work for this kind of analysis. I know this is not clear, but I will keep thinking about it. > >> As you know, I have a hard time conceiving that we are separate >> from Nature. I am not sure what part of us would be separated, >> except for the soul. This I do believe to be true, but the sieve is >> our bodies which are part of nature. Nature can of course be >> extended to include everything including the soul. So, depending >> on the semantics, Nature, Quality, Essence, could all be one thing >> that is differentiated. And, as you know, I do not see the need for >> "another side". > > These thoughts also trouble me, Mark. That's why I've defined the human > individual as a "being-aware". Inasmuch as the psyche or "soul" cannot be > separated from its organic body, the individual is in effect a dichotomy of > Awareness and Beingness. This is consistent with the primary Self/Other > dichotomy from which differentiated existence is actuated. [Mark] Yes, the individual is aware of its body and what happens to it. We project and create an other, which is separate from us, to explain this sensing. This sensing, however, never gets beyond the limits of our physical bodies. Even light from a source is not sensed until it reaches our physical boundaries. However, we can rationally state that such light came from a place outside of us. The soul can be separated from its organic body. This is what Buddhist do. But I agree with your dichotomy of Awareness and Beingness. This may again be a mind body dichotomy. In this sense, our Awareness is self, and our bodies are otherness. I can live with that. > > Most important for the Essentialist (and, I would hope, for the Qualityist) > is that this dichotomy is not only accountable for the differentiation > (i.e., contrariety) of experiential existence, but the affinity of its > contingencies for each other. For it is Value (the power of attraction) > which holds Self and Other together. And because Value is a sensible aspect > of the Essential Source, it can never be lost in the metaphysical scheme of > things. That, my friend, is the need for the "other side" to Value. [Mark] When you state that "Value is a sensible aspect of the Essential Source", I can relate to that. In many ways this ties the Essential to us. That is, a part of the Essential Source is us. What I do not understand is why its main "body" has to be on the "other side" or remain hidden. We feel Essence directly, not as some phantom of a negation. We are directly tied to it. This is the way I present Quality. We are an aspect of Quality, not its entirety by any means, but not different from. > >> Would you say that existence is provided us by Essence? Or are >> we at odds with such a thing? This is all that I mean by provided us. >> That is, that it exists and we can take part in it. > > That existence is provided (created) is part of the scheme. I suspect you > are "at odds" with this teleology, Mark; I have no reservation about it. > Whether one holds to a Big Bang, multi-universe, or eternal universe theory, > an uncreated source is essential. I do not see Quality (Value) as an 'a > priori' entity or force, insofar it can exist only by virtue of a sensible > agent. Neither Sensibility nor Value "exists" independently in Essence; > rather, Essence is the absolute unity of these functions. [Mark] No I am not at odds with that (I don't think). The uncreated source has always been and will always be. At least that is how I see Quality. It has its various expressions that we can be part of. Calling Quality a force is useful to some degree, but we can also call it an "object" in another type of discussion. In the same way, we can also call Quality light. I believe that light is about as simple as Quality can get. But this would be a discussion of the physical properties of light and how they can be analogized to Quality. I kind of get how you think. There is the creation of some kind of schism within Essence that provides us our awareness. This could work for Quality as well, since quality is what provides difference (or qualities). > > I sincerely hope you will find the means to "harmonize" with this concept, > Mark. You won't get it from the Pirsigians. [Mark] Well this discussion certainly makes me think. I find it most rewarding. It is not a matter of Quality reigning over Essence, or the other way around. Perhaps we could consider the two concepts as two sides of a coin. We do not need to toss the coin, just hold it. I obviously have my own interpretation of Quality, and as such I am not against harmonizing. If both are real, that is the only thing we can do. All the best, Mark > > > 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 > 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
