From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Tue Aug 19 2003 - 18:30:40 BST
Squonk,
[Scott prev (not Steve)]:
An artisitic creation is something like the Mona Lisa. Subjects and objects, on the other hand, are our reality at this time. Although we can recognize that they are not fundamental, we can't wish them away.
squonk: I suggest you have an exceptionally poor view of ZMM and Lila Steve. This is not a personal attack or anything of that sort, i assure you. I wish to help, and offer my unreserved service in this regard.
How can you help? I experience life in S/O form most of the time. Apparently your answer to this is "That's not real". Well, I know that, but I nevertheless experience life in S/O form most of the time.
squonk: The MoQ is not useless without subjects and objects - it is more coherent without them.
It becomes incoherent without exploring the seeming reality of subjects and objects. Where does this seeming come from?
[Scott prev:]As I said to Bo, a philosophy that ignores them is like a theology that ignores sin. Perhaps you don't experience yourself as at all distinct from the computer in front of you, but most people do.
squonk: In the sense that the computer and 'I' share a gravitational-electromagnetic relationships, we are not distinct. That is a scientific fact.
Obviously.
[Squonk:]On the social and intellectual levels, the computer and me and you share all the time, and the boundaries are impositions of your cultural inheritance.
Sharing is not identity. Our cultural inheritance is also a fact. To say "Fundamentally we are all One" is a nice thing to say, but why is it not obvious?
[Scott prev]:
A metaphysics that ignores that fact is useless. If subjects and objects are not primary reality, why does it seem that they are? A useful metaphysics must address that question.
-squonk: The MoQ in no way ignores subjects and objects. The MoQ explains why they appear primary. Subjects and Objects are aesthetic creations of the intellect.
That's not an explanation, it's a renaming. In any case, it's not plausible. I do not imagine that someone at some time said "Let's all think in terms of subjects and objects". No, over a long period of time people just did start thinking in terms of subjects and objects, and finally someone (Descartes) said "subjects and objects are real". So if it was an aesthetic creation, it was not an intellectual one. Instead it was a creation (social?, God's?) that shapes our intellectual creations at this time.
[Squonk:]If your view of art is a painting on a wall then you have allot to learn. Every moment of your experience is a creative activity - there is the potential for you to do well.
True. But why do so many moments not feel all that creative? And why are so many moments low quality (from bad art to child abuse). A philosophy has to deal with this, not just sling slogans at it. A preacher who says "God says that's a sin. Don't do it" just isn't very helpful. A philosophy that says "Your experience of subjects and objects is all an aesthetic creation" just isn't very helpful.
[Squonk:]Although i do sincerely wish to help, it's a bit of a drag banging one's head against a wall.
That's funny, I feel just the same way.
[Squonk:] And i assure of this; bantering with wishy washy ideas over and over again about subjects and objects is going to get you precisely nowhere.
My "wishy-washy idea" is that the S/O divide is a case of the DQ/SQ divide. My argument for this is that the S/O divide comes into play at too basic a level to be explained away as "an aesthetic creation", unless one ascribes that "creation" to Quality, not the intellectual level. It is more coherent to say that it provides the basis for the intellectual level, which is not to deny that we can momentarily transcend it. If Quality "decided" that the S/O divide is a good thing, then presumably we should work our way out of it *through* the S/O divide, by examining it, exploring its history, and so on, and not by just saying "it's not primary".
On the other hand, I see nowhere to go after saying "it's an intellectual aesthetic creation"?
- Scott
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