From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Mon Oct 17 2005 - 18:16:16 BST
Hi Reinier --
I could be mistaken, but it looks to me as if you're trying to make your own
ideas fit the MoQ ontology, and this is hampering my understanding as
well as our mutual effort to come up with a Creation hypothesis which was
never postulated by MoQ's author. I am proceeding by the terms you laid
out for our discussion in your original post of 6/30:
> I do not intend to focus on discussing about what Pirsig
> may or may not have meant with a certain sentence.
> I have my own ideas and I think what Pirsig writes
> supports those ideas, but my ideas are not
> limited or bound by the MoQ.
This is exactly what I've been trying to do. To set the record straight, my
'theory of nothingness' has no parallel in Pirsig's metaphysics, as far as I
know, and I make no claim that it's compatible with the MoQ.
In that same post you argued against the notion that space was an attribute
of "substance":
> There has never been a direct experience of space.
> We experience space because we experience substance
> in dimensions. So let's say space is an attribute of substance.
> Then what's between the substance? Given the fact that the
> actual substance as a percentage of what we see becomes
> smaller and smaller (a molecule is mostly empty, as is an atom),
> then space being an attribute of substance isn't very likely. ...
>
> We do not directly experience space or time!
In the Nothingness section of my thesis, I cited the most recent
astro-physical calculation of the amount of space relative to matter in the
universe, as follows: "The critical density of interstellar space is about
one hydrogen atom per cubic meter" or "one ten-thousandth of an ounce in a
volume the same size as the Earth.". Since the hydrogen atom itself is
mostly empty space, with (perhaps) an infinitesimal quanta(?) of energy
represented by the proton, any argument for substance (matter) is very weak
indeed.
I equate what "we do not experience" as nothingness, not an "attribute of
substance". I would agree with your argument -- if "substance" were the
fundamental building block of existence. But it is not. According to
Pirsig, Reinier, and Priday, the foundation of existence is "experience".
Therefore, I submit that "substance" and "space" are more correctly defined
as attributes of experience.
The issue between us is an epistemological argument. You regard nothingness
as hypothetical or "imaginary", whereas I see it as the "actualized not" of
experience. To me, the sensibility of nothingness accounts for all
quantitative difference. While the possibility of "not X" may be realized
by the human intellect while experiencing "X", I believe space and time are
in some way perceptible to all sentient creatures -- not hypothetically but
actually. Don't you think a bird or a cat can distinguish between objects?
You say:
> This is not 'nothingness'. When we define 'good' we
> cannot escape the fact that there exists 'not good' or 'bad'
> because if everything would always be good we would not
> recognize/experience it, and have no need to label it as good.
I agree that the contrariety of existence provides a scale of reference
whereby we may choose our values. But I do not understand quantification as
a valuistic process. For example, I don't recognize a coffee cup by
intellectualizing that it has the possibility of being filled with coffee.
I recognize it as a particular object by virtue of its shape and functional
design. I don't make a value judgment unless the design has some emotional
or esthetic appeal to me.
> If we have X and not-X we can only say that if X = TRUE then not-X =
> False. The 'not' in this logic has no relation to 'nothingness'.
But I think it does, Reinier. Ordinary experience is not a logical
exercise. If I observe a box, I don't assume "not box"; if I see that it is
empty, I don't think of "empty" as the "false" proposition of "fullness". I
see its emptiness as a nothingness. If I then fill the box with apples, I
negate its emptiness by "actualizing" its fullness. In the same way, if I
draw a line between two sides of a perfect square, I create two rectangles.
The line is the nothingness that divides the square, thus actualizing two
rectangles from a single square.
You seem to think such structural conditions involve a time factor:
> To relate to your thesis and the circle that's divided
> in two halves; which half is created first? They are created at
> exactly the same time.
> By naming a part of the circle as 'half' or 'part A' you
> automatically name the other part as 'other-half' and
> 'not part-A'. You don't create one half by using nothingness
> as divider, but by acknowledging that one part of the
> circle is the left half, and at exactly the same moment the
> rest of the circle cannot be the left-part, so is 'not' the left part.
I don't understand the relevance of time in this example. Everything in
experience occurs sequentially in time. But so what? We experience the
moment, but because memory provides a continuum, it's all part of our
proprietary experience. Introducing memory to these simple examples only
complicates the epistemology. Time and space are intellectualized
extensions of the "not" of experience. So, to include temporality in your
concept, I would say that we divide today's experience from yesterday's
experience by nothingness (time) in the same way that we divide one circle
into two semicircles by nothingness (space). Nothingness is an attribute
(or limitation) of finite experience.
> I can't confirm that nothingness is part of our
> actualized existence. I can't say a lot about nothingness,
> except that it's the hypthetical opponent of existence,
> and only from an existential point of view.
But this "existential point of view" IS experience!
Can you possibly consider nothingness as an experiential reality apart from
time factors and logical propositions? Have I at least made my thesis
understandable to you?
I would like to move on to Value, but it doesn't seem feasible until we have
reached some accord on nothingness as the primary divider. So, please give
me your objections to the above, and I will attempt to reconcile them with
my concept. I can't promise that I'll be successful in this effort, but
it's worth trying if we are to continue this discussion.
Patiently yours,
Ham
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