From: Paul Turner (pauljturner@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Sat May 31 2003 - 10:57:34 BST
Hi Johnny
> Someone here broke down the hot stove quality
> experience in chronological
> order
I believe it was my post that you are referring to. In
it I described how the ‘hot stove’ example could be
explained by the responses of each level in turn,
starting with the inorganic patterns.
In response to your post, I now see that the
explanation of the ‘hot stove’ that I posted is based
on a materialist assumption that matter, a body and a
person exist prior to the experience. The MOQ says
that this a high quality assumption and that, as in
the MOQ evolutionary hierarchy, inorganic nature and
organic nature has been around for millennia. The
description sounds right to me because I harbour
materialist assumptions.
An idealist would say the intellectual patterns come
first which include ideas of matter, thermodynamics,
the pain and the person feeling the pain. It might say
to the hypothetical ‘hot stove’ example, what stove?
However, the MOQ says that this is also just an
assumption and that actually experience comes first,
before any patterns.
What I have now realised is that the MOQ says both
descriptions are valid and have merit, the question is
not which one is right, but which is best?
I spent a lot of time trying to see what the MOQ says
is the real explanation, but it doesn’t.
The evolutionary hierarchy itself is based on a
materialist assumption about inorganic patterns of
value existing prior to human thought. It is an
assumption that has help explain empirical observation
better than other explanations for a long time. The
patterns are stable enough to consider the evolution
theory to be ‘true’. But the MOQ does not say that it
always has been and always will be. The good thing
about patterns is that they can change.
By refusing to define 'ultimate reality' (Dynamic
Quality), the MOQ has a built in capability to use
assumptions which provide the best explanations but
the capacity to throw them out if (or probably when)
empirical observation makes those assumptions
untenable. Materialist assumptions are being
continually eroded by quantum physics right now. In
other words, the MOQ leaves itself open to Dynamic
change. Materialism, idealism, empiricism and so on
are all intellectual patterns of value arising from
good assumptions which lead to high quality
explanations within limits.
This is probably obvious to you, it sort of was for
me, but I kept making subconscious assumptions when
posing questions. The MOQ says that when things don’t
add up between experience and explanation, back up
through your hierarchy of assumptions, perhaps not all
the way, just far enough to see where the problem is.
But if you back up far enough, you will end up with
‘experience’.
In Zen Buddhism a favoured symbol / character to
describe the nature of zen is called ‘enso’. It is a
circle brushed slightly differently every time it is
drawn, but most importantly it is never joined up to
form a closed circle. This, the sages say, is because
if the circle is closed, it closes itself off from the
ultimate nature of reality, change. I think that is a
good analogy to the MOQ.
I hope this clarifies the context of my post. Thanks
for considering my post.
Stay moral
Paul
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