From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Wed Oct 12 2005 - 08:26:45 BST
Reinier --
Let me try one other approach before you get back to me with your
objections. (These messages take so long to post!) And I'll base it on
your statement:
> Nothingness for me merely represents the
> hypothetical opponent of Essence. I say hypothetical,
> because it cannot exist as opponent.
You see, I think the "opponent" IS existence, and to that extent, existence
IS "hypothetical", as opposed to virtual or "real".
But you raise an important question: Does absolute potentiality (in the
Cusan sense) include "nothingness"? In other words, does Essence contain
nothingness? Up 'til now I have rejected that possibility. But let's
suppose it does. That would support my thesis that Essence negates its own
nothingness to create multiplistic experience. It would also support Cusa's
argument that the not-other has no opposition, hence no "opponents" -- not
even nothing.
I'll ask a silly question to illustrate a point. If you had the absolute
potentiality of Essence, including a hole in your middle, wouldn't you want
to exercise your potential and rid yourself of that hole? Now I realize
that's an anthropomorphic analogy, but it ties in with my "denial" thesis.
Isn't it conceivable that in order to maintain its absolute integrity or
"wholeness", Essence constantly "purges" itself of nothingness by denying
it? (One might call this the "absolute state of denial"!)
Seriously, from my relational perspective, I see Essence as "negational". I
think of Creation as a constant denial of nothingness. But this nothingness
cannot "leave" Essence, because -- if this theory is correct -- nothingness
is a constituent of the "contrariety" of which Essence is the "coincidence",
to use Cusa's terms. Instead, nothingness serves a metaphysical purpose: it
divides finite awareness from the absolute whole, making it the subject of
an objective otherness. And the result is existential reality
differentiated by the nothing-self which is also a free agent capable of
realizing the value of what it is not.
One more thought before I leave you.
You have a problem with my negational theory of differentiation, and have
theorized that value does the dividing. If that were the case, Value would
be a universal, like Pirsig's fourth level. But think about what we
value -- people, things, and ideas. These are all differentiated objects.
They have to be recognized as discrete entities before they can be valued.
We don't recognize a thing by valuing it. We must first "bring the thing or
idea into being" by separating it from all otherness. Differentiation is a
"quantitative" intellectual process, not a "valuistic" one. It involves
specificity, form, numbers, parts, moments in time, measurements in space.
Values, on the other hand, involve qualities, desires, emotions, and
esthetic or moral comparisons.
As the fat lady on the British sitcom "Are you being served?" used to say,
"I'm unanimous in that opinion."
(Of course, that doesn't mean you'll agree with me.)
Best regards,
Ham
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