From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Aug 13 2004 - 22:56:49 BST
>Hi Johnny,
Hello Platt.
>Oh, I get it. According to your philosophy, someone somewhere sometime has
>to have noticed I existed or else I wouldn't exist now. What if a tree
>grows in a forest and no one notices it. Does it exist?
Not until a tree is noticed does it exist. I would expect there to be a
tree in a forest, and I would expect it to fit in with the rest of the
universe in a way that makes sense. A human entering a forest is creating
all that he sees as he sees it, according to his expectations. His
expectations are larger than he is aware of, obviously, for he doesn't
really know what to expect when he goes into the forest. His expectations
thus are that things will make sense and jibe with what others experienced
or will experience when they enter the forest.
By "creating" I mean ontologically making real, giving substance to, turning
from a moral pattern of value into the real tree that is felt by the senses.
The tree is not experienced when it is not experienced, and thus does not
exist ontologically, substance-wise. But there remains a pattern of a tree
in Morality, an expectation that the tree will be there when you go back in
the forest the next day. If it isn't there, it is because stronger patterns
overrode the expectation that there would be a tree there, perhaps the
stronger pattern that fire destroys trees, and fires happen sometimes. If
the expectation of the tree being there does not create a tree, it is
becasue there is some stronger expectation being fulfilled, perhaps one that
not become known until the future.
>JM (previously)
> > OK, no, the patterns are always what is creating you and at the same
>time
> > they are using the locus of consciousness they create ("you") to
>continue
> > their own existence by having you expect them into the future.
>
>So now it's patterns creating consciousness so that the patterns that
>created consciousness will continue to exist because the consciousness
>created by the patterns expects the patterns to continue. Gets complicated
>doesn't it? Hardly meets Pirsig's standard for "economy of explanation."
It's not that complicated. I could have said something simpler but it
wouldn't have answered your question. Patterns and consciousness really are
the same things anyhow, from two different perspectives. You can't have
either without the other, and there is nothing more to consciousness than
the patterns it is conscious of, nor is there anything more to patterns than
consciousness of them.
> > You would
> > not be born into consciousness but for other "I"s expecting you to be a
> > consciousness. The other "I"'s are not you, they are me and the rest of
> > us, living, dead, and not yet born - in other words, all of Morality
> > expects a new baby to be conscious, to be one of us. Morality creates
>new
> > people, new locii of consciousness.
>
>Seems to me a higher quality explanation would be that I exist and have
>consciousness because my dad slept with my mother.
Yes, that is higher quality, I agree. I didn't say that I was offering the
highest quality explanation, ie, the one most likely to continue. SOM,
including the idea that we exist because our parents had sex together, is
very very high quality. Philosophy is degenerate and low quality.
> > JM (previously)
> > Expectation (Morality) preceeds existence, and experience is
>simultaneous
> > with existence of subject and object. Once subject/object experience
> > happens, that experience becomes expectation that both subject and
>object
> > will be repeated.
>
>In the MOQ, nothing precedes existence. Existence (Reality) is Morality,
>and Morality is direct experience, prior to--not simultaneous with --
>subject and object..
OK, maybe we are getting existence of things within morality (SOM) mixed up
with the existence of Morality itself, I think. Cause I agree that
Morality is prior to subject and object, but I don't call Morality
existence, rather I call object and subject existence. If I'm using
'existence' wrong here I'll switch to some other term to mean subjects and
objects, like, say, subjects and objects. But isn't that what we mean when
we say 'existence?' Ontological substantial existence, as observed by
subjects?
I think I could spin you around in the same circles you are spinning me by
asking you "who is experiencing this experience" and questions like that. I
agree I was wrong to say that subject and object emerge simultaneously with
experience if by 'experience' we mean Moraity - I was using it to mean the
little 'e' experience of an object as felt by the subject, highlighting what
we agree to be the fact that the experience creates the subject and object
simulateously with the subject experiencing the object. But yeah,
experience does precede the self-conscious awareness of the subject of
itself and of the object, but I think is simultaneous with the
pre-intellectual creation of those two things, in that the self-conscious
awareness and ontological substance follows by necessity. In other words,
as awareness of subject and object dawn in the moment after experience, the
eventual reality of the subject and object have already been created in the
only way possible at the same time the experience happens.
Hot stove example: first there is low quality experience, yes, we agree.
From this, both I and the stove are created. But the experience can only
create me and the stove, and that was true simulatneous with the experience.
Mine and the stove's ontological existence, the belief that the things
exist and are real, follow from the experience, but the experience follows
from other patterns of morality, including me and the stove already
existing.
These circles are perhaps not worth exporing much further. Perhaps you
might be better at figuring out the crux of disagreement, if there is any.
Maybe there isn't?
>Platt (previously)
> > >You have accounted for
> > >the existence of the cart (existence and being) but ignored the
>existence
> > >and being of the horse.
> >
> > The horse and cart are Morality. Are you saying the horse is DQ, by any
> > chance? Maybe there's a large horn on its head, too?
>
>How can the horse and cart "be" Morality. Horses and carts are derivatives
>of Morality, not Morality itself. And yes, we all know you think DQ is
>like the tooth fairy.
It's circular. Are you saying DQ is the horse? OK, but it is just a poetic
analogy, like horse is.
>Platt (previously)
> > >Your argument appears circular: experience that
> > >creates existence is by existence created.
>
> > Correct, it is circular, like Yin-Yang, Being-ahead-of-itself, etc. If
>you
> > are wondering where the circle started, back at the beginning of time,
> > there is much agreement about this - it started with the Word, Morality,
> > Expectation, Undifferentiated Quality. This was at the beginning, when
> > time began, with the first experience of Quality.
>
>In the MOQ, no one experiences Quality. Quality is experience. It has
>never started. It will never stop.
Fair enough. Trying to talk about this stuff just opens up your rear end
for kicking.
> > Platt, I think you are tilting at windmills here, why are you arguing
>with
> > me? You know that the MoQ says that SOM is merely a very high quality
> > idea, right?
>
>Right.
Right.
> > You aren't wrong to call SOM true and say that we are "really" here, but
> > this is a philosophy forum! About the MoQ! Philosophically, there is
> > nothing "out there", we are not existing subjects and objects, existence
> > depends on concsiousness, belief, expectation, faith, and Morality.
>
>Wrong. In the MOQ, existence doesn't depend on anything. Existence is
>Value, Quality, Morality. From that unity, all is intellectually derived.
Again, we were using 'existence' differently. Do you think we can agree
about that now? What do you feel about patterns of value?
> > You
> > are trying to assert SOM comes first!
>
>Wrong. Quality comes first. You are trying to assert that consciousness
>comes first or emerges simultaneously with Quality. It doesn't.
I guess this is the crux of disagreement, the rest is just confusion at use
of terms. I see this as a participatory universe a la John Wheeler and
Jonathan Edwards, an anthroscopic universe that is constantly created each
moment afresh, including all of history, acording to the beliefs of
conscious people, and dependent on consciousness. It is theological I
suppose (but I don't see a tooth-fairy-like God or DQ doing anything
special, rather, the atributes of God, the goodness, are beliefs built into
imorality near its foundation, the high quaity beliefs, but beliefs like any
other. I think you see Quality as leading the evolution of patterns prior
to any consciousness, in a more scientific evolutionary sense?
> > Makes me think you are just using
> > the bits of the MoQ you like as some sort of Ayn Randian prop to promote
> > individualism and elitism, but you don't really want to understand it
> > philosophically.
>
>The way you describe the MOQ makes me think you want to promote socialism
>But, let's not get into blaming hidden political motivations for our
>respective views shall we?
I just want to promote Morality. But OK.
Johnny
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