From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Tue Sep 27 2005 - 02:08:23 BST
Scott, DMB, Reinier and all MOQers --
It has occurred to me that most of the philosophy currently being discussed
here concerns the question: What is pre-intellectual? -- and, by inference,
what is not. There are numerous references to Pirsig's hot stove analogy of
the Quality experience, for example, plus mention of "pure sensation", a
Subject/Object level (Bo's SOL), "conscious interaction vs. unconscious
interaction", and so on.
There is an underlying assumption in all of these debates that something
called DQ is the undivided source of experienced reality. Although MoQ's
author refused to provide a metaphysical thesis for his philosophy, the
questions under discussion are really metaphysical questions. If my
analysis is correct, then I feel obliged to tell you that your arguments are
built on a false premise or, at least, starting with the wrong question.
While there seems to be a general consensus that existence is a "patterned"
system, whether the particular patterns are a construct of the intellect or
inherent in the experienced world, patterning can not be indigenous to an
undivided source (DQ). For a "pattern" or division to occur there must be a
potentiality for Difference in the source which can be actualized in the
experiential world as a cosmic template or universal pattern. I submit
that, whatever your theory of differentiated reality may be, unless you
begin with a premise that allows for Difference in the "primary" sense --
that is, as a potential of the Source -- your argments are without
metaphysical foundation.
How do we know there is an ultimate reality? We start with the proposition
that nothing can bring itself into being; for then it would have to be prior
to and greater than itself. It would have to exist in order to impart
existence on itself, which is an absurdity. Anselm's ontological argument
identifies God with the Supreme Being, which is "a being than which nothing
greater can be conceived." But it isn't the attribute of "greatness'' that
confirms ultimate reality; it's the logical necessity for it. Since nothing
can be produced by nothing, whatever we choose to call existence must refer
to a causal source that is its true reality
Now I realize that many of you reject the notion of a source beyond physical
reality (which is why Mr. Pirsig avoided metaphysics); however, I think that
it's quite possible to identify DQ as the primary Source and remain within
the bounds of the MoQ concept. Toward that end, Reinier and I have been
examinaing the writings of Nicholas Cusanus, a 15th century theologist and
astronomer, whose thoughts show the influence of the neo-Platonist school of
philosophy.
Assuming that you can accept the concept of an absolute, timeless and
undifferentiated Source, you find yourself asking how such a source can
bring into being a finite, dynamic and differentiated world. The best
answer, I think, lies hidden in Cusa's theory of the "coincidence of
opposites". The logic of human reasoning, like mathematics, does not apply
to a state of infinity or the Absolute. Cusa allowed for this when he
theorized that the 'first principle' had to be a not-other which is not
opposed to anything (i.e., is not other than either X or not X). The Cusan
coincidence is the ultimate state of reality in which relational opposites
like "negative and "positive" are equivalents. The key words in Cusa's
theory are "not" and "other". I contend that the law of contrariety also
has a special inference when applied to a non-contradictory source. For
example: the opposite of Oneness is not duality or some finite quantity but
an 'imaginary' nothingness; infinity cannot be increased or diminished; the
Absolute cannot be partitioned into finite segments; what is Immutable has
neither a beginning nor an end.
To construct an ontology of Creation with an absolute source as its Creator,
it is necessary that this source contain the potential for difference as its
essence. Although Cusanus did not cite such a potential in his theory of a
non-contradictory first principle, one of the corollaries of his theory is a
doctrine of possibilities and actuality, the notion of "actualized
possibility", or what he called possest, signifying a combination of Latin
"posse", (able, possibility) and "esse", (being, actualization). This
doctrine asserts that what is possible for the first principle also is
actual. If the possibility of contradictory otherness is always present in
Essence and becomes actualized when there is an awareness to experience it,
then it is this actualization that is manifested in experience as existence.
Because Creation "happens" it must have an explanation. And the ontology
that explains it is an ontology of differentiation. The primary difference
is the actualization of nothingness as the "division" of subjective
awareness from objective otherness. This creates a polar system in which
reality becomes the object of awareness. Metaphysically the system
(existence) is not other than its source (Essence), but in finite terms it
is broken into its experiential constituents. "Not" represents the
individual (proprietary) self-awareness, and "other" represents all of
physical reality, including the self-identified biological organism whose
neural components experience this awareness.
Thus, what is an otherness to man is a not-other to Essence. But man
(self-awareness) is a negate -- the "not-" of this "not-other" and the locus
of primary difference. The fact that man does not experience existence as
Essence (Quality), but as a dynamic system of relational objects and events
occurring in time and space, says more about the limitations of man's finite
experience that it does about the Absolute Source. It behooves us, then, to
study human experience if we are to learn how man converts his sense of the
Source into the myriad phenomena he perceives as constituting his
existential reality.
I know this is a "heavy" one, and I've mixed in a few ideas from my own
thesis here. But I do hope that the overall concept, starting with Primary
Difference, will be viewed as sufficiently compatible with the MoQ to evoke
some spirited discussion regarding the epistemology of existence.
Anyway, I offer this as a way of getting back to the fundamentals needed to
support any metaphysical proposition. I hope it will be considered in that
spirit.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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