Martin Striz (striz1@MARSHALL.EDU)
Wed, 5 Nov 1997 04:40:35 +0100
I'd like to add that you may see where I'm going with the title. You
said DQ can be related to noumena, but I didnt' think so, at least not
entirely. Perhaps you thought that because of the title? What I'm
referring to in the title is the idea that just as materialists,
rationalists, Platonists, etc., posit an underlying essence which is
this fictional noumena, the underlying undefined essence of reality in
MOQ terms is Dynamic Quality. DQ *can* be compared to the noumenon to
which all static values would be phenomena. Although it isn't a
necessity, I made the title that way to have some SOM-land comparison
for Quality, since SOM thinkers find it difficult to comprehend what
Quality is. The difference here is that in SOM terms there is a
plenitude of noumena. There are many many 'things' that can have
essences after all. But in MOQ terms, there is one underlying noumena,
Quality. Another difference is that the phenomena, static values, are
intellectualized mental constructs. SOM makes them the real part of
reality.
The materialist would say that only the noumenon is objective, any
phenomena, or sense experiences, are fallible. So by referring to
Quality (DQ) as the noumenon of reality, I'm making a reference to the
objectivity of it, too. (You may notice that I usually refer to DQ as
Quality and SQ as Values, just to keep things clear.) Mark Murdock said
it best when he mentioned two people who go on a rollercoaster ride.
When they get off, one of them says, "I loved it! The turns the loops,
it was terrific!" The other gets off and says, "I hated it, that was
terrible. I'm never going on that ride again." However, these are
their intellectualized, static value interpretations of the experience.
Go back to the moment when they are cresting the apex of one of the
hills. As they're flying down that slope. They're expressions are the
same! Have you ever gone to the amusement park and seen those cameras
that take your picture as you fly by? The similar expressions. Why?
Because all this value data is flying in so fast, too fast for our minds
to keep up. The intellectual faculty shuts down. You're not doing
differential calculus on those slopes, are you? You're not thinking.
The SOM duality melts away and you become 'one' with the ride. You're
at the preintellectual moment. You're at the cutting edge of
experience. There's a lot of Zen on the tops of roller coasters.
You're feeling the noumena, Quality, first hand. You're experiencing it
objectively. And that's why their expressions are the same. So that's
what that reference is for.
Orthodox zazen practice, and that feeling of being 'in the zone' when
you're playing a sport, are other examples of feeling the noumenon of
reality, Dynamic Quality, first hand.
In summary:
1) How Quality differs from noumena: In the MOQ framework, reality is
united by one underlying essence (noumenon), called Dynamic Quality,
while in SOM there is a plenitude and no noumenon is absolute.
2) How Quality compares to noumena: DQ is objective (as any noumenon
is), but we intellectualize to produce many static value versions.
Cheers,
Martin
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