Hello everyone
This is for Walter and David and anyone else who is interested in the
discussion.
Walter:
Could it be that the main difference is that I am a realist in my view on
reality and
you are an idealist?
Hi Walter,
You may say that I am an idealist without an ideal if you wish.
Walter:
I agree with David that this is a distinction between cosmology and
epistemology. I
wonder
if we all agree (maybe exept for you Glove) on that DQ has different
aspects and that
these aspects reflect the perspectives of DQ in cosmology, epistemology
and ontology.
This doesn't mean however that it is an independently existing reality
apart from our
own experience.
Glove:
My point would be that cosmology, epistomolgy and ontology are all static
quality concepts, labels put on different static ways of looking at our
everyday reality. Dynamic Quality cannot be captured by any concept, which
means that what you call the "different prospectives of DQ in cosmology,
epistomology and ontology" are really the same Dynamic Quality undefined,
and not different in any way that we can statically name.
Walter:
I have tried to figure out what the essence is of the difference between
your view and
mine.
I remember your struction and intellect as discreation concepts. I have
to be true
Glove that
I never really got it. I still have several posts from a view month
back and your
website which I want to respond to.
Glove:
I would welcome your comments on my website and when you have the time, by
all means send them along.
In my opinion, the difference in our viewpoints is that I see reality as the
imaginings of the self, not requiring order outside the self. This may seem
like a solipsistic point of view but that is not strictly correct either, as
I will attempt to show in my rebuttal to David's email:
David:
See what I'm getting at yet? The only thing I can think to call it is
Solipsism. And I don't mean that in the common sense of the word, as in
egotistically self absorbed. I mean it in the philosophical sense, as in
the theory that only the self exists. I think this is a HUGE mistake.
Walter has detected the problem too. He and I both point to the same
quote from Glove. We both disagree, but he labels Glove an idealist.
That's exactly what Solipsism is, radical idealism. Its a philosophy
with good instincts as it tries to escape from the SOM prison, but
doesn't have the metaphysical tools. The result is a retreat into the
extreme S part of the SOM metaphysic. In other words, it results in the
view that subjectivity is the only real thing, radical idealism. New
Agers have adopted a twisted form of the same view and are fond of
saying things like "each of us creates our own reality". Does it turn
your stomach too? : -)
Glove:
David, I am not as concerned with placing labels as I am with exploring the
the relationship as it lies between the subject and the object. I dont think
Walter really labeled me an idealist, I think he was merely suggesting a
possible difference in our point of view. One of our differences might be in
the notion of self, which may illuminate further differences as well.
Solipsism requires there to be an identifiable self, contained within a body
containing the mind, an individualness completely separated from that which
is not contained by the body.
I see self as much more than just an individual body. Self always has a
complement consisting of self's environment, which in my own self's case is
everything that is not self. At some point along the way (I cannot say
exactly when) I asked my self, is what I am experiencing part of self? and
the answer that came was - yes! It is part of self! Self is the totality of
my experience, everything I can name. At that point, my complement to self
is no longer that which is not my body, but rather that which I cannot
experience. Self is experienced static quality reality with complementary
Dynamic Quality which is unexperienced.
I am no longer interested in dividing up the world into objects apart from
my self. Since my self is no longer restricted to the boundaries of my body,
I can see that it never was in the first place. It was only agreements
instilled within me that told me so. My interest has shifted instead to
exploring this totality of self that I find so absolutely amazing. I also
find my own amazement mirrored in Robert Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality
with his elimination of the subject-object division and I have discovered it
in Niels Bohr's framework of complementarity as well, which btw was accused
of being that which you now accuse me of by those who did not understand
what Bohr was attempting to say.
If I am accused of solipsism, it is because those accusers are still trapped
within the idea of self as being only the body and the mind contained by
that body. Once this division of reality is dropped, solipsism ceases to be
a viable argument, in my opinion of course, and I think also in the opinions
of Pirsig and Bohr.
Best wishes
Glove
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