Ron [Marsha mentioned] --
> When I wiki "essentialism" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism > the explanation of it is akin to Plato's forms and holds that these > forms are fixed and absolute. > Ham, Is the Essentialism described in Wikipedia the same, close, > or another school of thought when compared to your Ontology? The simplest answer is that Wiki's article has used Essentialism to identify Plato's Idealism, which does not represent my philosophy. Plato regarded the nature of things as "essences" and attributed them to ideas, which he regarded as "eternal". This has nothing to do with Essence as I have theorized it, nor did Plato call his philosophy Essentialism. The word means many things to many people. I define Essence as "the ultimate, unconditional, necessary Source or 'whatness' of reality." There is only one Essence; anything else is an "essent" in my philosophy, meaning something divided by nothingness. Thus, things and creatures are essents, and their only connection to Essence is value-sensibility -- the differentiated perception of the absolute source by which creatures and their awareness subsist. Concerning Marsha's quote from Pirsig's MOQ summary, I do not consider the MOQ a "method of investigation, a tool for a more accurate perception...in value perception." I consider it a euphemistic perspective, albeit one presented with poetic touches. What scientist would seriously consider the Metaphysics of Quality an "investigative tool"? I certainly wouldn't presume to claim this for Essentialism. And what is "more accurate" about a morality that says, "Some things are better than others?" Let's get "real", Mr. Pirsig! He goes on... "Noether's theorem, the conservation of energy is a consequence of the fact that the laws of physics do not change over time." If that is true, then the laws of physics cannot be proven false, which puts physical science in the same class as the religion Mr. Pirsig demeans. I think you'll find that quite a few laws of physics have at least been modified, even since Einstein's time. "Dualism dissolves in the light of this theory for all (including space and consciousness) is energy." So Mind, Matter, and Reality are all energy. I guess that includes Quality as well! Once again, this is not a philosopher talking; it's an evolutionist who likes to paint existence in nice-sounding cliches that make us feel good about reality. I, for one, will not buy into the theory that reality is fundamentally a Goodness called energy, no matter how simple it sounds. Good luck to all, Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
