From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Fri Jul 15 2005 - 18:56:52 BST
Reiner, Arlo, MSH, and All --
Arlo said:
> However, my thinking is that such a transcendent source is
> inaccessible to us via scientific and even philosophical
>i nvestigation. I think Pirsig would agree with this, which is why,
> in ZMM, he simply states that Quality is the source, making no
> attempt to prove it.
Reiner said:
> One does not know what's meant by the nominal reference 'God'.
> You could argue that any nominal reference is an intellectual pattern.
> But by intellectualizing over a 'God' you sort of objectify 'God'.
> And objectifiable "God' is essentially not that!
> My point here was that there is a 'social pattern God' as well
> as an 'intellectual pattern God'.
Right, and I'm not interested in "intellectual patterns", as you've probably
surmised by now. We all want to get at the "truth" of God (or ultimate
reality) -- it's the very purpose of Metaphysical dialectics.
I see the problem as "mystical" in nature rather than "religious", inasmuch
as the Theists are bound to specific dogma concerning the deity. The
following logical analysis, which I've quoted in my thesis, puts the problem
squarely into focus:
"[But] the indefinableness of God in a mystical sense comes in fact to be
indefiniteness; that is, it rules out any definite proposition about the
Divine essence. Any such proposition means a sort of limitation imposed on
the Divine, while the latter is incompatible with any limit. The
ontological *unlimitedness* of God entails for a mystic an epistemological
indefiniteness: any assertion about God would then be only metaphorical and
would not serve as an established basis of knowledge."
--Andrey Smirnov, Oriental Philosophy Dept,, Russia Academy of
Sciences
What Smirnov is saying is that we cannot assign any kind of attribute to
what is already Absolute, except its Unity or "Oneness". The metaphysical
paradox, then, becomes a logical challenge. What can we say about God in
order to incorporate it into a workable metaphysics?
Cusa's solution was to construct a logical theory of "otherness".
"The first principle cannot be other either than an other or than nothing
and likewise is not opposed to anything"... "The world is not God but is not
anything other than God." God is "not other", he says, because God is not
other than any other, even though "not-other" and "other" seem opposed. But
an "other" is not opposed to God from whom it is derived. Thus, for any
given non-divine X, X is not other than X, and X is other than not X. What
is unique about the "divine not-other" is precisely that it is not other
than either X or not X.
Now that, gentlemen, is what I regard as a metaphysical breakthrough -- not
because it "proves the existence" of God or reveals some new aspect of the
Creator, but because it enables us to deal with a Primary Source in the same
(logical) way that we deal with existential (created) entities. The
definition "Not-other" confers on God the "self-sameness" required to
encompass all finite things into the undifferentiated Absolute One. I
submit that this is the ontological basis of Theism, Buddhism -- in fact,
all of the world's religions. IMO, it should also be the basis of any
valuistic philosophy.
Mark said:
> My thinking is that such a transcendent source is
> inaccessible to us via scientific and even philosophical
> investigation. I think Pirsig would agree with this, which is why,
> in ZMM, he simply states that Quality is the source, making no
> attempt to prove it.
We can't "prove" it because absolute truth is denied to us. We can't
"investigate" it scientifically because Science only deals with objective
otherness. But we can theorize it in logical terms; indeed, that is what I
understand as the philosopher's challenge. To "simply state that Quality is
the source" is an assertion or personal notion that suggests an idea at
best. Building a heirarchy of Quality levels and patterns is only an
arbitrary classification system for various kinds of experience. Where is
the ontology to support this thesis? Where is man's connection to the
transcendent source defined? If Mr. Pirsig really believes in this source,
why does he characterize God as "a relic of an evil social suppression" and
insist that "the MOQ is anti-theistic"?
Reinier says:
> I totally Agree that (let's for argument sake use the G-word) God
> cannot be scientifically proven. My logic still says, if A exists
> and nowhere or at no-time not-A exists, then A can not be
> experienced. Here I should say 'valued' instead of 'experienced'.
> Because experience with no value at all leaves Unity/Essence/
> Dynamic Quality/God.
Doesn't it also leave Nothingness?
Essentially yours,
Ham
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Jul 15 2005 - 20:49:28 BST