Hi Ham You know if you wanted to convince a bunch of MOQers that the below possibility is one worth considering I'd suggest you'd have to start with the differentiated and relational reality of experience as described by the MOQ and show that this description poses a set of questions/problems that need to be answered or solved by what you suggest below. I think I can see some of these questions/problems that do require advancing further ideas to make sense of what we do actually experience and could lead the MOQers into evolving the MOQ. But making progress with the MOQ seems very difficult on this forum, which is probably inevitable. But at the least, I'd suggest you ought to now leave off telling us about this possibility, the below explains it quite clearly I think, well done, and yourbookis available.The task for you, if you want it, is to better understand what the MOQ offers as a description of experience, and to try and explain to the MOQers why it needs further development, why there are aspects of reality-expereience that the concepts of MOQ fail to fully describe or explain. Not many here would accept this incompleteness, although Pirsig would seem to expect that the MOQ should be found to be incomplete, endlessly so in fact. Whether your suggestions below reduce that incompleteness is another questions. For me I think there are some good implications in the below but somehow the package does not quite form into something as beautiful as it should be, which is something to do with the way some of these concepts have been devalued by familiarity and abuse.
David M First, let's dispense with the precept of "always", since assigning duration is a function of intellection, not reality. From the perspective of Essence evolution is a fait accompli. Accordingly, everything I explain in this elaboration is described in the present tense. Although the concept is not readily grasped by the Western mind, there is a logical principle known as "the coincidence of opposites" by which a non-describable ontology can be conceived. Loosely stated, it's the proposition that if Essence is not "otherness" and beingness is the experiential appearance of an other other, then what appears to be the object of our experience is actually something else-something that we ourselves create. We only know two modes of reality: the awareness of it, and the beingness of it. Together they create being-aware-the phenomenal substance of cognizant perception. For something to be it must first be made aware to an observer. George Berkeley introduced phenomenalism to philosophy in the 18th century with the axiom esse est percipi, "to be is to be perceived." What Essence actualizes as the appearance of "other" is its differential potentiality. Because Essence is absolute and ubiquitous, there is no other within or beside it. Therefore, in order to create difference, it "invents" an otherness by denying what it is not. The logic for such a denial is that absolute potentiality includes the power to negate absolutely that which it is not intrinsically. Since Essence is defined as "all that is," it is the logical equivalent of "nothing that is not." Nothingness is not intrinsic to Essence and, as the antithesis of Essence, it is also absolute and represents the negation [i.e., the 'not-'] of what Essence is. Rather than "something created from nothing," finite existence as we experience it is actually a manifestation of Essence reduced by the nothingness that divides it. The nothingness conceals its wholeness. Negation of the absolute Whole equates to difference with nothingness as the differentiator. Negation does not directly create being; it actualizes Difference as two primary essents which are divided by nothingness and conjoined by Value. This is the dichotomy of Sensibility and Otherness. Pure sensibility is psychic (non-being), while its complementary essent is insensible. Value links the two contingencies together and represents the copula in being-aware. Not until value is differentiated by the brain is it experienced as being in space/time, so that the experience of an object is precisely what constitutes the object: they are one and the same. Since experience is the perspective of reality as process in time and space, we can say only that it begins as a nothingness with the propensity to sense the value of otherness, eventually making value the reality of being. The reciprocity of negation and affirmation, (proprietary) awareness and (universal) being, each separated from the absolute source by nothingness, establishes the primary relation for differentiated beingness. Epistemologically, experience is a secondary (double) negation by the mind or self. As the agents of Value we incrementally negate the 'otherness' of things so that they become our reality, and so that we can appropriate their value for our selves. Insofar as value is perceived relationally by the senses, it is the intellect that determines the form of the observed images retained in our conscious memory. But value is also our affinity for the integrity of Essence, which means that it is essential and non-negatable. This incremental reclamation of our displaced value from what we experience as being ultimately unites the dichotomy, restoring both sensibility and otherness to their absolute (non-contradictory) identity in the Source. What I've typed above is actually a précis of the creation hypothesis from my recently published book, 'Seizing the Essence". If you're seriously interested, it's available from the publisher, www.Xlibris.com/Bookstore or Amazon online for $20. (Just type the word "Seizing" on the Search line to access it.) Of course, I'll be happy to answer specific questions or try to clarify anything that doesn't make sense to you. I hope I've addressed your present questions, and well as giving you a better idea of my metaphysics. And thanks for indulging me in a plug for my book. Essentially yours, 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/ 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/
