Jaron,
Good essay, i write these critiques as i go, so i dont have knowledge of
what comes after the statemesnt when i critique it. Poor judegement, thats
your call.
> Reality is because there is Tao or Quality. Without the Tao/Quality
> there would only be pure, uniform, undifferentiated energy quantum
> wavicles.
Reality is Quality because as humans we are stuck on the intellectual shel
never able to know what "really" exsists below us. Without quality there
is nothing, not even void, because there is no words and no perception, to
talk about a world without quality is an error and a lie.
>Our brain is self-aware
on a biological level.
This statement undoes one of the beauties of the MoQ, the resolution of the
mind/matter duality. to say that self-awareness is a process of the brain
"react(ing) to and monitor it's own brain processes" reduces thought to a
deterministic stimulous-response (however complicated) action. Intellect
is not of the brain, the brain is a bilogical instrument, but i am "I". I
can say that i have a brain, which implies that it is not my brain saying
this. brain as self is a classic SOM statement. To use pirsigs metaphor,
intellect is a program that runs on a machine language (society), that runs
on hardware (brain). intellect is not a property of the hardware. The
program could even theoreticaly transfer itself it another hardware system
and destroy the old one without harming itself (can people do this? not
that i know of but it serves to illustrate the point).
That is a weak point i know. But my point is best illutrated by your
diagram:
EXTERNAL REALITY
TAO/QUALITY
ENERGY/MATTER
UNIVERSE
SENTIENT BEING
BIOCHEMICAL EVENTS WITHIN THE SENTIENT BEING
-----------SENTIENT BEING'S MIND------------
INTERNAL REALITY
SENSATIONS/FEELINGS/THOUGHT PROCESS
SYMBOLS/WORDS
Ideas/Beliefs/Emotions
Romantic Quality - - Classical Quality
Here is mine now:
One Mind (spoke of in the Awkening of Faith, a buddhist sutra)
Quality event (and almost simultaneously:)
illusion of self (-----------SENTIENT BEING'S MIND------------)
INTERNAL REALITY
SENSATIONS/FEELINGS/THOUGHT PROCESS
SYMBOLS/WORDS
Ideas/Beliefs/Emotions
Romantic Quality - - Classical Quality
You put quality so far before perception, when i cant see how quality is
itself anything but perception. But as you say this is only a map, so as
far as that goes it fits the tests for validity (that is, you find it good
to think of the world like this and it consistant with both observation and
reason (i think). But i am bothered still by your biochemical explanation
of intellect. I dont know enough really to refute it but i hope someone
else does, because it doesnt feel right (i percieve it to be of low
quality). perhaps this is it: Intellect can be expressed as a complecated
pattern of biochemical whatever, but it is not itself that pattern. this
is where the importance of qualitatively differnt levels supported by lower
ones is important in explaining intellect. I'll think about this some
more, good work.
Elliot
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