From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Wed Sep 07 2005 - 07:38:24 BST
Hi Dav and Reinier --
Since no one else seems to be latching onto your dialogue, may I? Your
discussion goes back to a fundamental question I posed some time ago. Can
there be reality without the experience of it? Some would say that's a
chicken-and-egg riddle, but riddles like that are what metaphysics are
mostly about.
Reinier had asked:
> But if there was no-one to experience the stove, would it still be
> a stove or just an object. Would it be an object when nobody
> experiences it, or would it just be molecules in some sort of
> order... would it be molecules?
Dav confidently answered:
> Yes, it would just be molecules. Or rather atoms, or quarks, or
> strings, or whatever the smallest element is that science came up
> with to date.
Pirsig would have said it was Quality.
I have a couple of suggestions that may help solve this riddle (but they
lead to another one, as you'll see.) First, we must be clear as to what we
mean by "reality". Is it the physical world of objects and events arising
and passing in space/time existence? Or is it the source (Quality or
Essence) of this reality which is absolute and unchanging?
If you don't subscribe to the latter, then logic forces the conclusion that
objects exist before they can be experienced -- unless, of course, you
assume (as I think Dav did) that time is "recursive", by which I think he
means it's an intellectual construct (i.e., way of seeing things) that does
not apply to reality. In that case, there is no actual sequence, and the
question is meaningless. That might be regarded as the existential view.
On the other hand, if you allow a primary source (Quality/Essence) to
support existential reality, there's no need to dispense with a space/time
scenario. You then have a subsistence or ground that's always there, no
matter when we experience it. The question then becomes: What precisely is
the true object of experience, (Kant's "noumenon")?
Now, I think we all agree that existence is "patterned"; that is, we
experience it as an organized order of discrete objects arranged in a
three-dimensional universe. We need to differentiate these objects by their
extension in space and their occurrence in time in order to distinguish them
as separate entities. Does this dimensional pattern come directly from the
primary source, or is it a mental construct of the intellect?
Well, if you believe, as I do, that the Source itself (DQ/Essence) is
undifferentiated, it makes more sense to attribute the dimensions and
specificity (properties) of experienced objects to the observer, which makes
them proprietary. The problem, of course, is that they are also
"universal" -- every person can see the same physical characteristics,
although from a slightly different perspective. This suggests some aspect
of existential reality that is non-proprietary and that can be collectively
(empirically) confirmed.
It's easy enough say that existence is an illusion, but it's an illusion
whose physical properties are shared in common. Thus, either the physical
properties of existence are a universal pattern or consciousness is. In
either case, a pattern is definitely not something that can logically be
attributed to an undifferentiated Source -- even a Not-other that creates an
"illusionary other" as man's existential reality. So, why does existence
take this particular form? What accounts for the specific properties of
existents? Gentlemen, I have no idea. This reasoning has led me to a dead
end.
Can either of you suggest a way out of this paradox? I'm all ears.
Regards,
Ham
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