Dearest Ham, Yes, my worldview as it stands today. I am fine with taking a break from the specifics of this conversation and tackling other subject matter. Let me first say that I have garnered much respect for your presentations through words. I am certain that this would only increase if we were to share an afternoon over a cup of coffee or a beverage of your choice. (In days gone by, I would have chosen Absinthe. However in my drive towards responsibility, that would have made me complacent. The use of anxiety towards greater altruistic responsibility is one of the higher forms of Free Will, in my opinion (clever mix of forced will and free will therein, if I may say so), but I digress).
But before we move on, if you would indulge me by “listening” to my rant below, I would appreciate it. My desire is towards the creation of meaning. As we grow old, we tend to shut more doors than open. Such is the nature of living where only the important things are paid attention. It is usually harmful things that seem to occupy the human mind, and thus marches on much of the destructive strife of man. However, paying attention to positive possibilities, if we find the time to do so, has its own rewards. So, in the sometimes obscured attempt to be inclusive rather than exclusive, and to educate rather than obfuscate, I will blather some more below. Ham: So, Pirsig's cosmology of Dynamic Quality proceeding on its unalterable course toward "betterness", and carrying everything in the universe with it, is not (in your opinion) deterministic. It's hard to see how this can be an "ethical" activity, let alone one involving Free Will. Apparently belief in an ethical (moral?) universe requires one to accept the ancient animistic notion that quantum particles exercise the same freedom that man does. As a scientist, you realize of course that if hydrogen atoms had "decided" not to pair up with oxygen atoms, there would have been no water to support life on this planet. Likewise, had small bodies in space not been attracted to bodies of larger mass, planetary orbits such as our solar system would have been impossible. But, I suppose the laws of nature are assumed to be "patterns" of Quality which "freely" go with the flow. >[Mark] As you may know, “betterness” is a bit of a tautology since it can only be described in hindsite when the direction of the universe is concerned. The same is true for “fitness” as it is used in the current theory of evolution. I prefer not to get into that quagmire, but I will say that there is direction, and that such direction can be seen as positive. It is clear that you subscribe to the notion of movement towards betterness (as it were), since you propose that “ancient” thought is somehow less good. But leaving that aside, I am of the opinion that a perennial philosophy does exist, and that we cannot dismiss the past since it makes us what we are. So, that aside, I will address your concern. If man and woman decided not to pair up to form offspring, there would not be much to talk about now. Yet, I have heard that parents “choose” to have a child (and indeed they do). Now, not all parents make this choice. If all hydrogens chose to pair up with oxygen, this would be a different world altogether, but they do not. Can you imagine why they do not? Well, to those misinformed scientists, the concept of probability and activation energy and environment comes is. Well, this is nice hand-waving from a distance, but does not address the particular hydrogen atom in question. As you know, statistics is meaningless at the individual level. >From a distance, and in geological time, the adventures of man, the rise and fall of civilizations, the creation and destruction of cities, etc, would be seen as highly deterministic, and statistics could be set up to predict overall behavior. What would be missing would be the individual’s behavior. In the same way, we consider our cellular activity to be determined, but don’t tell your pacemaker heart-beat maker that. If the natural pacemaker fails, another one takes over. How is that decision made? Who gets the job? Is it purely random? Maybe, maybe not. What you describe above is statistical behavior, not individual free will. I hope I made that clear, and will move on. Mark previously: Again, Pirsig states that the entirety of creation is moral activity. One cannot claim morals if there is no intention. Each person has its own interpretation of morality, as does everything else. As humans we can understand (at least a little bit) where another human is coming from, but we have not idea how morality is interpreted by other things. All we can see is that things aspire to greatness. As such, we cannot create morality, we can however, interpret it in our own way. There are so many things that can be built out of sandstone (Quality), us human do one thing, the river does another. There is no difference, it is all astonishing. Ham’s response > I can accept your statement that there is no morality without intention. > What I cannot accept is that "things interpret morality", or that they > should even need to. Only man can realize his aspirations because only man > is sensible to Value. For me, you see, the physical world is an > anthropocentric system, the form of which is actualized in the process of > converting value-sensibility into the experience of being. The laws of > physics are inherent in the Essential Value which we can only experience as > finite, relational beingness. Mark now, as it is being written: What I mean by interpretation is that our present incarnation is part of something much larger, and cannot stand alone as an anomaly. While it is pleasant to think that we are God's children and a plentiful world was provided us, I find that somewhat dismissive. Also, while it is lofty to consider ourselves as the creator of what is, such creation must be performed within a certain context. It is that context which I am discussing. It is possible to hold subjective creation concepts and its alternatives at the same time; through amalgamation a much stronger alloy is made of Thought. For, it is true that two to the power of exponents is much larger than one to the power of exponents, where the exponents are arrangements of thought. The use of Three is, of course, required for the creation of all things, otherwise we just have two sitting idly by. Perhaps you consider the sunlight as something that is useful to us. The sun is transformed or interpreted into a concept of "life giving", and we make it meaningful as a concept. I do not think we can create the sunlight, but we interpret it through our sensibility as something that provides warmth. If indeed, as you say, we do create sunlight through our power of revealing Essence. Then such power must have its source, for something cannot be created with nothing. If Essence is the source of our valuation, the we get into a teleological circle. To continue in an objective fashion, plants interpret sunlight in another way, and the cyclical nature of evaporation and precipitation by the planet is yet another interpretation. Our interpretation of this light is through the form of human thought. Such thought becomes us, and provides meaning. However, objectively it would seem to be insufficient and a poor use of Ocam's razor, to claim it is made through the spirit of man. It is not a far leap to state that our thoughts of Morality are similar in principle to the sunlight just described. We could say that morality is essential for sustaining human life, as we know it, in the same way that sunshine is. That is, a universal morality is harnessed to provide us with meaning within a human context. Another example would be the wind. We do not create the wind (I state categorically), yet we transform it into a means for propelling a sailboat. The wind of morality blows through us, and we convert it to personal meaning. The point, I suppose, is that subjectivism and objectivism live together in harmony and balance. We create the world as much as it creates us. The physical world is indeed converted into an anthropocentric system, since it is interpreted by our minds as such. For the world to have meaning, it must be directly relevant to us. To be relevant, it must be an extension of us. Again, I would caution against forming a very fixed notion of cause and effect, since it works both ways. We are also relevant to the world and actually complete it's present existence. The world cannot exist without you, thus you have purpose both personally and impersonally. The meaning of life is thus expanded exponentially. > > [Ham, previously]: >> >> Hopefully, this valuistic analysis will not be viewed as another >> "Ham attack" on Pirsig's Quality thesis. > > [Mark before]: >> >> No, this is no attack at all. Quality is what subjects and objects >> are made of. All that we can sense is the quality of something. >> That is, if it is hard or soft, if it is bright or dim, etc. We have no >> knowledge of the thing itself. Because everything interacts through >> Quality (DQ) to form the material or conceptual (sq) it seems >> appropriate to call this a Quality world. I am not sure what you >> mean by sensible subjects, do they have to contain nerves? >Ham: > A "sensible subject" is not a brain but the proprietary Self. No, it does > not contain nerves, cells, or organs because isn't a biological entity, but > is rather what some call the "soul" or "seat of consciousness". I use the > term "awareness", which I think comes closest to defining value-sensibility. > The central nervious system and all the bio-physical apparata constituting > what we call a "human being" are existential instruments of the subject's > awareness. Like the physical objects in the world about us, the organism by > which we are identified is actualized from Value in the process of > experiencing. [Mark] Yes, I am fine with your "sensible subject"; however, one cannot separate the material from the spiritual. They are one and the same. Any division is purely for rhetorical purposes of illumination. The “thread which connects the pearls of reincarnation” is indeed an illuminating concept since it explains much more than its alternatives such as a handful of loose pearls being tossed into this world. The chain of existence cannot be broken and divided into little pieces and analyzed separately. Part of that chain is our physical presence. The sensible subject without apparati is somewhat meaningless in practice. Any holographic projection requires a source, energy, and a place for the hologram. Without these three, there is no apparition. The source defines the picture, which I would assume is Essence in your ontology. The energy is Value, and the picture forms within the Sensible Subject. All three of these, while conceptually independent are pragmatically dependent. The same can be said for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (just thought I would inject some Christianity to annoy some unrepentant sinners reading this). >Ham > What is significant about my epistemology is that the subjective Self is NOT > a physical entity. If it were, we could not possess the power of autonomy > but, instead, would be. bound to the same physical laws that make evolution > a deterministic process. In my opinion, Pirsig had to do away with the > autonomous self in order to posit the universe as his Quality-based > empirical reality. In this way he could promote the MoQ as "radical > empiricism". [Mark] What if the subjective Self is contained in things other than the human variety? How does such an idea provide more meaning the universe in general? If indeed we are searching for meaning, then it behooves us not to shut doors which may lead to astonishment (or enlightenment I you want). What system is your ontology contained within? Is it one of human thought, or does it encompass human thought and thus drive it? Are you providing a human interpretation of reality, or does reality provide your interpretation? If you indeed create your reality and it is all pervading for your sensible self, how does one then turn around and view it from a distance? While subjectivism is indeed a mode of thought, objectivism must also exist to bring subjectivism into being. In the same way, anthropocentrism must exist within a larger context. I have provided some of that context in the form of concepts. In my quest for a position of humility, I raise all else to the level of respect I hold for you and me. > > Thanks for explaining your worldview, Mark. I hope this post will serve to > wrap up the fundamental differences between our respective metaphysical > persuasions. > > Yours in the pursuit of higher understanding, > Ham Yes, and yours in the Creation of higher understanding, 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/ > > > 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
