PUZZLED ELEPHANT TO MARTY ON BEING THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE:
ELEPHANT HAD WRITTEN:
> If you think that value (quality) enters
> into the construction or make up of all objects, then the idea that there
> could be objects around before we recognised them just doesn't make sense:
> the world is what it is because it is an evaluation: and we do the
> evaluation.
MARTY WROTE:
> I don't usually just jump in here, but this statement bothers me. It seems
> that you are saying that the MOQ requires that the human brain/mind is at
> the center of the universe, and that nothing exists before it is perceived.
> If the MOQ is saying that the human mind PERCEIVES that quality enters into
> the make up of all objects, that is much less interesting than if quality
> actually COMPELS objects to be made. Am I missing something?
ELEPHANT:
That's a good thing to be worried about, and it might be me who's missing
something. However, in my opinion, what I wrote is not equivalent to the
claim that the mind is the center of the universe, nor that the entry of
quality into the make up of all objects is something we perceive, in the
normal sense of 'perceive'. Nor, indeed, do I think that MOQ is exactly
committed to saying that "quality actually compels objects to be made",
since Quality is a being, a fundamental being, and also a power, a great
power, but not an agent. That's a list of what I don't think. So what do I
think (or think I think)?
First, I can still talk about the continuum, or flux, as pre- (and
post-) -existing human beings, because I think of that as existing, right
now, even though it is the most non-object conception you can conceive of.
One way of putting this would be to say that, before there were men,
whatever we now think about in terms of mountains and rivers and trees,
existed then, just as surely as it exists now. Before enlightenment:
mountains and trees. After enlightenment: mountains and trees. The point
is to grasp that pure experience and our conceptualising can be
disentangled. Try it.
Second, this connects with a quarrel we might need to have about your
use of the word "perceive". I am not saying that nothing exists before it
is perceived, if by "perceive" you mean a relation that a "perceived" object
enters into towards a "perceiver" who is distinct from the object. If
that's how we are going to use "perceive", then I will just say that nothing
is perceived, period. Flux makes the supposed existence of the distinct
terms that such a relation requires impossible, end of story (see Plato's
discussion of flux and Protagoras in the Theaetetus). So perception is
something other than a relation, perhaps? Well, if it is something other
than a relation, I don't see the problem about the existence of perceived
stuff being coincident with our own existence.
Third, your talk about 'mind'-dependant here raises doubts that might (I
don't know) only be live ones because of your conception of 'not mind', and
our picture of 'not mind' is precisely what's at issue in MOQ.
In Sum, there is no danger of either of us becoming the center of the
universe, in a world where Good is a noun. Our lives revolve around
quality, and it's a pretty compelling gravitational force, if that's what
you mean by "compel": that doesn't make it an agent of creation. You want
to assimilate God the Creater with God the most real. This is a neat little
move which didn't really work in The Beginning, and isn't very convincing
now (IMO). It is, incidentally, one of the major loci of disagreement
between Hinduism and Buddism.
With seasonal greetings,
Pzeph
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