From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Fri Nov 07 2003 - 02:38:53 GMT
Paul,
> [Scott:]
> Once one has realized that consciousness operates outside of the
> spatio-temporal framework, it seems to me foolish in the extreme to
> ground metaphysics in everyday experience.
>
> [Paul:]
> I did not mean that everyday experience is all there is but equally, I
> think everyday experience is all too easily overlooked in metaphysics.
> As said above, the MOQ uses a static/Dynamic division to try and explain
> everyday (static and Dynamic) experience whilst providing a framework to
> incorporate exceptional (Dynamic) experience such as mysticism.
I agree that metaphysics cannot ignore everyday experience. Indeed, that is
my complaint about the way Pirsig handles the intellectual level. It only
sees SQ, whereas I see DQ and SQ. My view is that, like a scientific
hypothesis, a valid metaphysics will not take everyday experience as its
starting point, but does need to show, or allow for, everyday experience as
derivative.
>
> With regards to consciousness, as said before, as time and space are
> described as a (highly valuable) product of consciousness
> (question-beggingly defined here as intellectual patterns) there is no
> requirement for the MOQ to explain consciousness in terms of a
> spatio-temporal framework. Consciousness is nevertheless an everyday
> experience of value patterns verifiable by anyone.
Agree. But a metaphysics should also show why there can be no explanation of
consciousness in terms of a spatio-temporal framework.
I don't really blame the MOQ for not doing so, since at least in the book
Lila, it is unnecessary to go into this in order to discuss moral conflict.
What I have been objecting to are some features of the MOQ (its treatment of
intellect, and its ignoring the everyday experience of dualism) that prevent
an extension to questions of space and time and so forth.
>
> [Scott:]
> Similarly if one accepts quantum reality, and/or mysticism.
>
> [Paul:]
> Quantum reality in the MOQ resides at the static inorganic level as
> patterns of subatomic preferences. Whilst the movement of subatomic
> particles is not part of everyday empirical experience, as the MOQ
> levels are not continuous, there is no requirement to ground the other
> (more readily experienced) levels of the metaphysical system in quantum
> reality.
Again, one doesn't need to interpret quantum weirdness to discuss moral
conflict. But one does if one wants a complete metaphysics. In particular,
to explain why we don't see uncertain photons and electrons yet assume what
we do see is made up of them.
>
> You have a point about mysticism. The MOQ holds that static patterns of
> value do not advance a mystic understanding, which is described as an
> experience of unpatterned value. However, whilst I agree that a mystic
> understanding often denies the validity of everyday experience, a
> metaphysics that only acknowledges Dynamic, ineffable, conceptually
> unknown reality, is a blank piece of paper. I have a feeling your
> adoption of the L of CI offers a solution to this?
Not a solution. Mainly a wedge to keep the question open, to remind one that
one does not Know.
>
> Finally, I don't think it is extremely foolish for metaphysics to
> account for everyday experience which does not involve quantum
> fluctuation and mystic awareness. Everyday experience includes sights,
> sounds, smells, feelings, relationships, bonds, duties, customs,
> problems, ideas, principles, decisions, analysis and philosophy
> discussion groups. This is all part of the comprehensible static
> universe which the MOQ provides a vocabulary to talk about whilst
> maintaining that all of this arises from a Dynamic reality that is
> always more than what is said about it.
The MOQ does not account for the sense of self. Illusory it may be, but
whence the illusion?
>
> What would a metaphysics based on the L of CI look like?
It is debatable whether there can be a metaphysics based on the L of CI. At
best it would be an ironic metaphysics, where the ground is no ground, alway
expressed in paradoxical terms. There is philosophy, though. I've referred
to Barfield/Coleridge before, which seems to me to be philosophy that says
positive things, yet keeps the ineffability of the ineffable safe.
- Scott
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