From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Tue Sep 27 2005 - 19:35:24 BST
Reinier --
Happy to receive your response to the McManaman critique of Paul Davies'
existentialist cosmology.
Please note that I have opened a new thread, "Looking for the Primary
Difference", for our purposes in the hope that we'll get some positive
feedback from the mainstream MoQers. ("The intelligence fallacy" --
whatever its original meaning -- is not relevant to a discussion of the
primary split, and I propose that we abandon it.)
> I assume the conclusion of the reviewer is as follows,
> and I quote:
>
> "God's nature is to be, and so there is nothing that happens without His
existential causality - for no contingent thing is the sufficient reason its
own existence. No thing and no thing's activity has being without the primal
causality of the First Being. He is involved in every existing process, and
because He is the existential cause of all that is, nothing can happen by
chance for Him. There is no chance with God. For anything outside His
knowledge and will has no being."
What exactly are you quoting? I don't see that paragraph in the McManaman
review that I referenced for you. (Could this possibly be a quote from a
thesis you're working on?)
Whatever its source, I can't disagree with this theistic interpretation.
(Of course you realize it will be an immediate turn-off just by mentioning
the "G--" word.)
> This still doesn't answer the 2 million $ question of course...
> but I've been thinking about actualizing and potential.
> Essentially they're not different. If Essence is the absolute
> source. And Essence is absolute, and the opposite of
> Essence is nothingness, then Essence is everything and
> everything is Essence. So to say that Essence is the
> potential and then search for the trigger or reason that
> the potential becomes actualized is wrong. For in Essence
> the two are the same. What would be the difference?
>
> The only difference lays in the subjective realization of it.
> Realizing the potential = realizing the potential
> and realized potential = actuality.
>
> So, at the moment of becoming aware of the potential
> the potential is realized and is actual.
I totally agree. In fact, I think we've already found the Primary
Difference in Essence itself. You defined it when you suggested a
non-contradictory source. Cusanus made it his first principle: the
"coincidence of opposites". It is the very nature of Essence to include
contrariety as a potentiality of its Oneness. That potential is
"actualized" by negation -- the attribute I've "humanized" in my thesis as
"denial". If we think of Essence as a "negational" source, we infer a
potential whereby Nothingness, the antithesis of Essence (i.e., its polar
opposite), can be understood as the primary divider that gives rise to
differentiated (i.e., "patterned") existence. We may then proceed to the
created universe as experienced (epistemology), having resolved the issue of
how an absolute, undifferentiated source can create a dynamic, pluralistic
beingness.
> There's no actual a priori existence outside of Essence
> (to this we all agree). Everything that is pre-supposed
> is as well potential (it has to be).
Correct.
> Thus, the whole MoQ, or any metaphysics, can at most
> describe the subjective awareness of Essence (=existence),
> which is the Essential potential or perceived actuality.
Correct.
> That's why the MoQ still has that attraction to me,
> it doesn't need time or spatial existence, it's a value-chain
> that can be deduced to the core at any given time without
> contradicting itself. It only falls short when ariving at the
> source, and it's mistakenly taken for some sort of absolute
> morality code by some.
I don't see that morality can be extracted from metaphysics, but it can't be
denied that the source of existence represents the highest value to man.
And, despite the fact that Value is not an "identity" (unlike Pirsig's DQ),
it is an important part of our experience that derives from Essence. I
intend to revisit Value in a future epistemological discussion, once we have
some "positive" consensus on the Primary Difference.
> I see two openings for discussion here...
>
> a) the big bang, an interruption of unity of some kind
> that has caused this whole value-chain and causality,
> which we know as subjective awareness. Which created
> time-space awareness but when looked at from outside
> time-space (so from Essence) has no time-length or dimension.
>
> b) the sinfall, a religious interpretation of the same thing,
> where the capability of valueing was introduced (before
> everything was peaceful, but afterwards they were able
> to see the difference between good and bad).
> They choose to see/value. A metaphoric approach.
I'd prefer to avoid metaphors altogether, since to the postmodern mentality
they paint a deceptive picture of reality. In my opinion, the doctrine of
"original sin" was invented to placate the faithful who could not understand
how a beneficent deity could allow plagues, suffering, and cruelty.
> These are two (scientific and religious) markations of the
> point we try to explain.
I have no problem with the evolutionary theories of Science, inasmuch as the
laws of Nature have practical application in our existential experience.
While it's no substitute for metaphysics, the scientific approach to
knowledge is not our nemesis. However, religion can be, if our reaction to
spirituality is so adverse that it prevents our acceptance of a primary
source.
> Well, that's it for now, don't know if it makes any sense.
It makes a lot of sense to me, Reinier. Again, we'll have to wait for MD
feedback to learn whether it makes sense to them.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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