From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Fri Feb 18 2005 - 20:25:07 GMT
Ant,
Ant said:
If the MOQ implies a language in describing reality, I think - if anything -
it is the rheomode as elucidated by David Bohm in his text "Wholeness & the
Implicate Order". This places events and actions first and subjects and
objects in these (Quality) events, second. So, for instance, instead of
stating "It is raining", you would state: "Rain is happening".
Scott:
I've read Bohm's book, and am underwhelmed. What this and other process
philosophies overlook is awareness. If reality were entirely in the
rheomode, there would be no awareness, which requires the contradictory
identity of things versus events, or continuity versus change. If all is
flux, how is there awareness of flux? How is it that rain can be considered
to be *still* happening?
Scott said:
>the MOQ's view on language (and
>intellect) has its roots in SOM, and has not escaped it. SOM splits reality
>into mind and nature. Language belongs to mind. The MOQ preserves this
>split
>when it sees the mental (the social and intellectual levels) as having
>developed out of nature (the inorganic and biological levels).
Ant McWatt states:
The MOQ's use of the four static levels and Dynamic Quality does not
preclude it from using the rheomode. I'd love to see an SOM philosophy even
attempt to.
Scott:
Materialism, a la Dennett is a SOM philosophy that does.
>The only
>difference that I can see between a SOM materialist view and the MOQ is
>that
>the MOQ has added DQ to account for value and as a means for development up
>the levels...
Ant McWatt states:
I think the differences between materialism and the MOQ are actually
fundamental.
Firstly, materialism tends to take statements about reality literally while
- instead -the MOQ takes statements about reality as provisional high
quality ideas i.e. more figuratively.
Scott:
I don't see this, at least since Kuhn. Pretty much any thinker is aware of
the provisional nature of all theoretical constructs.
Ant said:
Secondly, materialism sees everything in the universe as being composed of
physical substance while the MOQ sees it as composed of value - physical
substance being just one (probable) manifestation of value.
Scott:
True, this is different. But as I have argued, a manifestation of value only
makes sense if there is awareness of value. The MOQ is silent on this. Was
there consciousness before the biological level came into being?
Ant said:
Thirdly, static quality patterns and DQ are both designed to take account of
value not just DQ alone
Scott:
But my complaint about the MOQ is that DQ is seen as simply that which makes
new SQ out of old. How is this different from an Intelligent Design theory?
Ant said:
Fourthly, the chasm caused by the mind-matter split in SOM is bridged in the
MOQ by its reduction of mind and matter to value patterns. Chapter 3 of my
PhD thesis goes into this in great detail.
Scott:
But (as I have argued) value implies awareness of value, which is the
interplay of universals and particulars, which is intellect. As long as the
MOQ sees intellect as only one hierarchical level, it has split mind and
matter a la SOM.
Ant said:
>the MOQ has added DQ to account for value and as a means for development up
>the levels (in which role it seems to me to be theistic).
I don't think "theism" is a good term to apply in the context of the MOQ.
It implies incorrectly that Dynamic Quality has a personality or is
supernatural or can be prayed to or is fundamentally separate from the
static quality patterns.
Scott:
Something that can make new SQ out of old is supernatural, unless you say it
"just happens", as a materialist would. True, the MOQ does not treat DQ as a
person, but any theist intellectual will tell you that that is an
unwarranted anthropomorphism.
Ant McWatt states:
Well, I'd be interested in knowing why you think this [SOM-based mysticism]
if you have the time.
Scott:
I'm going to skip it for now. My view on mysticism in general is not the
same as Sam's (I think), so I'd rather see how he develops his argument
before weighing in.
Scott said:
>With respect to what you say here, I will point out that you emphasize
>language's role in discriminating, and hence limiting the full panoply of
>that of which it is possible to be aware. This can be turned around, by
>saying that language (or better, intellect) creates *by* discriminating.
>Without it there is only chaos. By making distinctions, reality comes into
>being.
Ant McWatt states:
I think this is an SOM (and incorrect) way of looking at things. In the
MOQ, "Being" (i.e. Dynamic Quality) is primary, out of this "Being" arises
intellectual patterns which in turn create distinctions. If "Being" was
chaotic (rather than composed of values) then the intellectual patterns
couldn't arise (because they would not be valued) and, in consequence, the
distinctions would not (eventually) arise.
Scott:
I fail to see how saying that DQ is "composed of values" is compatible with
DQ being "undifferentiated". As I see it, what you have said here is on the
slippery slope to Platonic Ideas (or at least Plotinian Intellect), but
since that is more or less what I think -- subject to 2000+ years of
development --, then that is all to the good.
Ant said:
Finally, Scott, I don't know if have got round to reading the Copleston
annotations by Pirsig yet (as Paul Turner and David Buchanan have recently
shown in their excellent posts over the last six weeks) but these may help
clear-up a few aspects of the MOQ for you.
Scott:
I've read them. They haven't changed my view of the MOQ. And that you call
posts in which the author (DMB) calls me "confused", "having a blindspot",
"hypnotized", "unable to read", because he misreads what I have I said,
responding abusively to imagined disagreements and not actual ones -- that
you call them "excellent" boggles my mind. Paul's though, are generally
helpful, though he has not of late responded to my criticisms, for example,
of whether or not the MOQ should be called empirical, by any definition.
- Scott
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