Good Morning Ham, Often I must read your posts several times before I get what you are saying. I take them seriously because I believe you really mean what you are saying. That is, you have a real awareness of what it is you post. Often I have used the term "feeling", which may be misdirecting. Perhaps a better way to put this would be to say that you deeply "sense" your place in this reality. I think we have the same understanding of such "sensing". Such sensing includes the intellectual component as well as what lies beneath it.
On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 10:38 PM, Ham Priday <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi again, Mark -- > > > [Previously]: >>> >>> 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. > > On re-reading your analysis tonight, I got a strange feeling of deja vu, and > I realize it's because someone whom we both know is pushing the same > cosmology, albeit in different terms. He calls it "perfecting the noumenal > I am". You call it "morality". But the underlying concept is that Free > Will is the ability of the conscious subject to choose one course of action > from "all possible actions", the idea being that the "soul" is essentially > the "infinite possibility" of choices. I do not subscribe to that view for > the following reasons.. > > 1. Infinite possibility implies that the individual psyche or self is "one > possible actualization" of the cosmic soul [read: "collective > consciousness"], thus nullifying the need for an Absolute Source. [Mark] The concept of infinite is a difficult one. I spent some time reading up on infinite sets to see if I could use them within MoQ. There can certainly be an infinite set of possible actions, but there may be other infinite sets outside of that. the "smaller" form of infinite means that something can be subdivided infinitely, it does not mean that it includes everything. To include everything is the Big infinite set. As it turns out, all infinite sets have the same number of points, which is infinite of course. I found this interesting since logic and common sense fall apart here. If I understand your "1", the infinite possibility would nullify the Absolute Source since it would include such source. However, it could be rationalized that both could exist. This is where logic gets tricky. Since logic is something we make up, we can expand it to allow both to exist. > > 2 As a moral concept, it means that Quality (Value) is not intrinsically > "good" or "better" but a homologous aggregate that has no valuistic meaning > until a choice is made. [Mark] Yes, we get into the subjectivism areas, which I do my best to avoid since they lead nowhere. Certainly one man's good is another's bad. If we look at directionality, however, (which is what Quality denotes), we can abstract tendencies. So while all statistics fall apart at the individual level, we can ascribe to other levels to note direction. If we then ascribe such direction to a concept of morality we can see Quality in action. I would agree that Quality can also be bad quality, but the notions of good and bad imply direction. The notion is that such direction is towards the good. Since our choices are part of the picture we could either say that we create the future, or that we follow the future as best we can. > > 3. Free choice is a matter of individual "preference" which is ruled out, > since without valuistic motivation, decisions are reduced to random > possibilities rather than value affirmation. [Mark] I am also leery of this whole "random" stuff. Since what is random can actually be modeled by statistics which makes it not random. Like Chaos Theory should be an oxymoron, yet it is a discipline. I do not think decisions are random, but they are highly complex. Such complexity is due to the vast number of free choices which are being exerted at every minute. > >> 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. > > It's remarkable to what lengths a philosopher will go in order to refute > absolutism. Making "gods" of ourselves seems to be a favorite example. > Positing the individual as "patterns of Quality" is an obvious variant of > this approach, as is a mini-essent, Absolute-Essence paradigm. [Mark] Well, typically I use the "making gods" term in a provocative way. However, the sense that we are all gods or part of a larger god is not a new one. This seems to be what I take away from many so called mystical narratives. As I have said before, I do not care for this "pattern" analogy. It sound like waves coalescing or something, which is not how I see Quality. I did not think you would care for my mini-essent idea, but I thought I would throw it out there. > > By definition, human individuals cannot be "made of", "parts of", or "beings > of" an Absolute Source. The only logically acceptable relation of the > differentiated agent to the undifferentiated Source is an absolute relation: > that of a nothingness (negate) to Essence. With Value as the common > denominator between physical and metaphysical reality, the subjective agent > affirms the Value of Essence by negating the otherness of its own being. [Mark] Well, we can always change the definition (heh, heh). I do like your common denominator idea and will have to think about it. > >> 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. > > It's not that one reigns over the other. It's that all that we know of > Essence is Value. But you're right that the paradox can be likened to the > two sides of a coin. The sides (existence and metaphysical reality) are > divided; the coin (Essence) is one. As long as there are two sides, you are > a winner however the coin lands. [Mark] Yep, Win-Win is always the best way to go. Later, 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
