Hey there, Mark --
Dearest Ham,
Much as I like to try to figure out what Joe is saying, you
are being misled. His problem is easily addressed. He can
know the indefinable by not defining it. And I am not being
facetious with that. Think about it. Do you know Beauty
or do you have to define it first?
I experience Beauty, goodness and morality in my sense of relative Value.
This sensibility is first converted to the finite aspects of my phenomenal
world through my experience, and then interpreted intellectually (i.e.,
defined) as my knowledge of the world. I don't start out as Joe did,
however, with the premise that Value is "indivisible", "indefinable" and
"unknowable". If that were true, I would not be capable of dividing it into
defined patterns from which my knowledge is derived.
Mark:
Yes exactly. If DQ is all of those things, then what are we doing
writing about it. It is like writing about a phantom of a phantom.
DQ is not divided into sq, it expresses sq. There is a big difference
there. The Sun expresses sunlight, it is not divided into bits of
sunlight.
Sq, or definable patterns of DQ, are expressed by ME. Sunlight is the
energy of the Sun, which is one of the patterns we actualize from essential
Value. I think our mistake is in presuming that the patterns and their
relational values are a "given", and that the onus is on something called
"Quality" to give them meaning. Rather, the meaning of reality is what we
realize in differentiating its Value.
The point I was trying to make with Dan is that the MoQ, by rejecting
subjects and objects, eliminates the sensible agent as the measure of Value.
Goodness (and Evil, too, I suppose) are thus predetermined aspects of
Quality metered out to creatures by a moral universe progessing toward a
state of "betterness". It "wonders me" (as the Dutch say) that we can even
be discussing moral responsibiity when there is no accountable moral agent.
No doubt messy. This is the beauty of the internet. However, is it
possible that from Chaos comes Order? Where is our fearless
leader when we need him. Is he hiding out somewhere, or is he
one (or more) of the avatars herein simply trolling for another book?
Flotsam and Jetsam, all of it, I say!
As Marsha would put it: it's all analogy and reified conventionalism. In
other words, why ruin the fantasy by struggling to define it? This may not
accurately express RMP's metaphysics, but it certainly reflects his poetic
spirit IMO.
Ham, give me some of your "questions about Quality", I will
have no problem giving you some kind of an answer to them,
mystical or not. By the way, are you defining Quality with
"mystical nature"? Tut tut, Ham, you know better than to
break the RMP rules...
Be my guest, Mark. The two questions I asked Dan were:
1. If, indeed, DQ is both indivisible and undefinable, as well as
unknowable, how can it be divided into definable patterns of
static quality?
2. How can our response to Dynamic Quality "lead to greater
knowledge" if it is unknowable?
As presented, Quality is mystical to me. It defies conventional
epistemology,
empirical verification, and causal logic. It is accepted on faith as the
true reality and equated with experience, despite our inability to know or
define it. And it is our guide to Betterness only when we follow it. What
can be mystical about that?
Essentially yours,
Ham
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