From: David M (davidint@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Tue Oct 25 2005 - 20:05:42 BST
Hi Ham
see comments
> It's useless to discuss philosophy with someone with a closed mind to new
> perspectives. You have obviously latched yourself to the MoQ doctrine and
> want your reality explained in no other way. That's fine with me,
> although
> I think it limits your perspective and leaves many questions unresolved.
DM: New does not equal good or interesting or right. I am not latched to the
MOQ,
that's a fantasy of yours. I have some unresolved questions, do you?
>
>> I see no good reason to postulate substances or a mixed up
>> essence with 2 inexplicable aspects.
>
> Considering your intransiency, there is no point in trying to address such
> a
> statement. You "see no good reason" to change your view of reality
> because
> you don't want to change it. So you close your mind to anything else.
DM: Do you have any good reasons?
>
> If you read my thesis, you'll see that I have posited no "substances".
DM: Seems to contradict what you have said on line, never mind.
> Essentialism is a subjective philosophy that is founded on sensible
> awareness, not substances.
DM: How can you have subjectivity without objectivity? I say drop both.
The true reality is Essence; it's the division
> of Essence by nothingness that creates the physical world of experience.
> The only significant difference in calling reality Quality and dividing it
> up into four value levels, is that the MoQ reality dismisses proprietary
> awareness which is the crux of the experienced world.
DM: In MOQ experience = awareness of quality/qualities so that's enough
ontological priority of awareness for me.
>
>> 2 very different thinkers being put together here,
>> Heidegger thought Being and Nothingness was 'rubbish'.
>
> That is not true.
DM: Hubert Dreyfus the Heidegger scholar told me this is what
Heidegger said about Sartre's book Being and Nothingness when he met him.
For Heidegger 'dasein' (Being in the world) was
> experiential reality. Sartre developed a more evolutionary metaphysics
> based on Being and Nothingness (negate).
DM: General academic opinion is that Heidegger tookthe Cartesianism out of
Husserl
and Sartretried toput itback again.
Existential beingness was
> fundamental to both philosophers, neither of whom was able to relate
> substantive reality to a primary source.
DM: Existential is not a word Heidegger ever used. You might find it in bad
translations.
>
>> Well I think there is a lot of care required before you should jump
>> for this particular postulate, well up to you, but I have yet to see the
>> benefits.
>
> You won't see the "benefits" until you see the whole picture. And that
> requires some persistence and a willingness to consider a philosophy that
> goes beyond otherness.
DM: True, but you needa hook to pullme in, so far no hook,
more like obstaclesand put offs. We all have to select what to investigate
and what not to.
>
>> Seems to me that mystecism is more honest and
>> less reliant on unjustified postulates.
>
> I don't know what you mean by "unjustified postulates". All metaphysics
> are
> based on logical hypotheses concerning reality beyond empirical knowledge.
DM: Beyond, beyond, I start with experience and look beyond it only if it is
necessary
to explain things that transcend experience, history for example, if you can
take
me from experience to something that needs a transcendental explanation I
will follow,
but you seem to leap straight into the beyond and than just splash about as
far as I can see.
> That includes Pirsig's metaphysics to the extent that it is presumed to
> support his Quality thesis. If you can't accept such postulates, you have
> no "justification" for accepting the MoQ.
>
DM: Pirsig starts from the problems of our current assumptions and offers
a less problematic setof assumptions, that makes them good to me, I have no
idea what your reasoning is other than nonsense about logic, really!
>> I thought Gnosticism was a mystical tradition?!
>
> You folks have a tendency to regard anything you don't understand as
> "mystical", as in "mysterious".
DM: I am sure that book on my shelf is about the Christian Gnostic
tradition and Jung.
'Gnosis' was the generic term for knowledge
> in the Greek language of the first two centuries A.D. It came to be
> regarded as "intuitive insight" applied to conceptual ideas that transcend
> rational thinking about the relational world of experience.
DM: Intuitive/concepts/ideas/transcendening rational thinking/experience
-Hegel makes more sense! Do you really think you are saying anything
with that sentence?
The same
> approach to knowledge can be found in the insights of contemporary
> cosmologists like John Wheeler and Paul Davies. Indeed, it would be
> difficult to find a metaphysical thesis that is not an intuitive
> construction. Can you suggest one?
DM: Try the MOQ or how about Whitehead.
>
> Eastern mysticism is a cultural belief system involving mantras, Koans and
> meditative practices that have little to do with metaphysics but are more
> closely related to religious chants and rituals. Resorting to mystical
> practices and drug-induced states of consciousness as a way to resolve
> metaphysical inadequacies is a copout.
DM: Pirsig says his metaphysics of quality can also be called
One, Nothing or Tao. Link?
>
>> Seems to me that you either go my way or make
>> yourself up a creator, I think my approach is more
>> honest about what we can/do know.
>> And you can have a more interesting relationship
>> with a less idolatory 'Nothing'.
>
> Only a hypocrite would call someone else's philosophy less "honest" than
> his. I choose to go 'my way' because it is what I believe and it makes
> more
> sense to me.
DM: OK, maybe I should say seems the more honest choice to me,
i.e.you seem to me to take a leap into the beyond without good cause,
in all honesty I can see no reason to leap with you, it answers not
questions
I possess, you tell me what my position can't answer that your position
does.
>
>> Who created the creator?
>
> You see, this is where you are in need of intuitive insight. Your
> question
> demonstrates an inability (or unwillingness) to extend your perspective
> beyond the empirical world where everything has a beginning and an end.
> The
> primary source is absolute and uncreated. You and I are creatures living
> in
> a created existence, none of which is possible without a Creator.
DM: Or drop the creator and problem solved.
>
>> The ineffable is usefully and most honestly not defined.
>
> That is hardly the attitude of a true philosopher, David.
DM: Well it would not be ineffable otherwise! Now that's honest.
>
>> Division implies something once unified, and for me
>> division is only a virtual, or never fully effected,
>> so that unity always underlies it. Like Scott's contradictory
>> identity. The One encompasses the Many.
>
> Existence is the "contradictory identity". Essence is the
> non-contradictory
> source. (Read Cusa's theory and Prof. Miller's logical formulation in my
> Creation section.)
DM: Yeah, but prior to this difference how can we have a subjectivity as you
claim?
>
>> or the not of Nothing you could say, a not of nothing is surely being.
>
> Only if you consider (differentiated) being the source rather than
> (undifferentiated) Essence.
DM: I agree, undifferentiated, but what's wrong with calling it Quality?
>
>> See you can't do without nothingness, your mistake is to
>> postulate beyond it, unnecessary and dishonestabout what
>> you know, as your confusion makes clear. I would also
>> suggest that an unlimited nothing is also abundant with
>> possibility, being unlimited by thingness it able to create by
>> self-limitation, I think this is a nice way to understand
>> the relationship between the limited finite and unlimited nothing.
>
> This makes no sense to me. Obviously there cannot be "unlimited nothing",
> since you and I exist. The only thing that "creates by self-limitation"
> is
> the unlimited source.
DM: WellI am calling the source Nothing, therefore unlimited source
becomes unlimited Nothing, word play, so what? Is this not the same
claim?
>
>> I believe that when Heidegger talks about the suprression
>> of Being in western ontology he is pointing his finger
>> and (CORRECTION SHOULD SAY 'AT') Becoming as a missing aspect of our
>> ontology,
>> Pirsig calls this DQ.
>
> The Becoming that you and Heidegger "point to" is no more than the
> evolutionary mode of beingness which is the nature of all creation. It
> ignores the immutable, unchanging source -- your "mystical" unknown.
DM: how can I be ignoring what I refer to as 'mystical unknown'?
If the source is immutable how does it get out of bed in the morning
to create reality?
>
> I said:
>> > You're right David; you're not going to persuade me.
>> > I hold out some hope, however, that I may persuade you.
>
> To which you replied:
>> That made me laugh out loud. But feel free to persuade me.
>
> I'll wait until you stop laughing and start demonstrating some willingness
> to seriously consider what I have to say. You might begin by explaining
> why
> you think I'm not honest in my conviction and that things "do not seem
> clear" in my mind yet. That seems a highly illogical conclusion from
> someone who admits to not understanding my thesis.
DM: I don't understand, you have not convinced me you understand it,
Dear Sir I am not saying you are not honest, but you seem more interested
in your ideas than mine, I have not been impressed with your answers where
you
have provided them, and I feel that you are making frequent unjustified
leaps of
thought, I think I can offer reasons for my views but cannot see how you get
to
yours, so in honesty I cannot accept them, or see any bite in your
criticisms
of Pirsig, I see only that you have not understood him.
>
> Concerning my online thesis, you said:
>
>> I've had a flick through it, it is intriguing but unsatisfying,
>> but you should be congratulated on making the attempt,
>> but it does not grab me as going in the right direction.
>
> I suggest that you proceed without assuming that it's not "going in the
> right direction" and without expecting "instant satisfaction". (I didn't
> make those assumptions when I read Pirsig.) If you find something
> specific
> that seems inconsistent or illogical, I'll be happy to try to clarify it
> for
> you. Otherwise, I'm engaging in a nonproductive discussion about
> generalities with a negatively prejudiced debator.
>
DM: I have found most of your clarifications to date add to my confusion
as to what you are tryting to say.
I agree that we have reached an unproductive end point. But thanks for the
chat,
it helps me to think about my own views out loud. But I am only one reader,
may you have better luck elsewhere and I continue to admire the efforts you
have put into trying to solve very difficult issues. Maybe you have yet to
express yourself as well you need to win followers. When it comes to good
writing Mr Pirsig is to be admired, more so for this than his philosophy I
would say.
-not the view of a disciple ah?
>
> Essentially,
> Ham
>
>
>
>
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