Greetings, Case -- I don't know if I'm responsible for the creation of Krimel's alter-ego, but here he is back again!
> Krimel asked me to remind you that you invited questions about > your philosophy. He does not think his have been satisfactorily > addressed but he has no wish to be "nitpicky." You told him that > his "philosophical position is intractable. Since mine is too, we're > both wasting our time. > > Our user agreed. Still he thinks a lot about the intractability of his > position. He is convinced that his position is to be other-than > intractable. Not wishing to waste your time, he considered that perhaps > he had been unfair. He admitted that he had failed to read your thesis; > literally failed, as several attempts ended in either boredom or > frustration. This time he vowed to press on. He converted it to Word > and printed it out. ... > > When Krimel asked how does your philosophy differ from apologetics; > he meant it in the sense of a reasoned defense of the faith. Your whole > system seems to revolve around your need to defend Essence, the > Primary Source, God. Eventually you conjure up an immortal soul of sorts. Every philosophy revolves around a central thesis. Mine happens to be the primary source, that without which there is nothing. I cherish life, experience and values as much as anybody else, and I depend on space/time reality and the laws of physics for my being-aware. But these relational contingencies are not self-created or primary to existence. They are conscious phenomena that we intellectually construct to represent the primary source. If that is an apologetic defense of faith in God, then perhaps the priests and clerics should take note. > You rant against computer disks as digital prayer wheels and atheist > existentialists offering hopelessness and despair. Yet your antidote > exists > in a spaceless/timeless state; unmovable, impersonal, completely abstract > and inert. ... >You go on for pages to make 'Nothing' into something. You give it function > and force and begin a series of negations that end in us: "When an entity > negated by Essence negates, it creates the appearance of being-the > dichotomy otherwise known as being-aware."... > Your "empirical space and time" are Euclidian. As a youth you envision, > "a superhuman being with the ability to see beyond the limits of finite > perception, and my conclusion was based on speculation that an infinite > perspective would overlook the minutia of finite existence."... > Your time is likewise fixed. It is a fait accompli. It is only the > sequential manifestation of immutable Essence. Existence is predestined > and our 'freedom' is an illusion. You tell us ignorance of this illusion > is > bliss. No, that's not quite correct. Existential time is illusory, but it is not fixed. History in its totality is a 'fait accompli', yet man never sees it in totality; he sees it as a passing series of events. But objects and events in transition are not fundamental to the primary source (Essence). Essence is neither anthromorphic nor a process. It is absolute and timeless. What I cited as "bliss" was the fact that human beings cannot have direct access to absolute Truth. We cannot know our ultimate fate, or even what tomorrow will bring. We can seek wisdom in this world, but will never find it. We cannot prove that there is a transcendent source, or that some aspect of our individuality is eternal. It is that "ignorance" (Eckhart called it "innocence") which enables us to be free in our choice of values, beliefs, and actions. The paragraph you quoted was to demonstrated that human beings are not robots tracking a programmed course. > You picture us 'negates' going through the motions anyway, enriched > by ignorance until; "The illusion ends, as it begins, with a negation." > We are to be consoled knowing that, ". loss of selfness accounts for > most of the fear we associate with death, it behooves us to remember > that the truly meaningful experiences and greatest joys in life are those > in which we lose ourselves." That's right. The life-experience is finite, and we dread our own passing, as if we had a "right" to immortality. The alternative is to realize that Value is our inexorable link to Essence, and take joy in our role as its free agent. > And yet your vision is so abstract and devoid of life that scientific > materialism looks hopefully in its light. Science acknowledges life. > It meets it on its own terms. The scientific abstraction of nature is > answerable to nature. Science asks questions. It does not make > demands. Science does not leave us mercifully blind in a Calvinist > world of predestination. My vision is not devoid of life. It sanctifies life and the individual who lives it. It also acknowledges that being-aware is a dichotomy of proprietary awareness and objective otherness, a dichotomy that is irretrievably held together by Value. I make demands of no one. The world is "predestined" only for those who believe that time is a principle of nature and that every effect must have a prior cause. The rest of us are free and autonomous agents of value. > You mention the quantum physicists and like so many others, enlist > them in your battle to undercut the foundations of the materialist world > view. > And yet consider what they have done. They have taken your God's eye > point of view far beyond what you imagined in your youth. They urge you > to put away childish things and see with new eyes. What would God see > if he rode a beam of light? With their equations and instruments > scientists > have expanded human consciousness into realms beyond our ability to > experience. The paradigm of a material universe whose primary constituents are particles of energy that cannot be measured or localized in time and space only demonstrates that quantum physics has exceeded the limits of human experience. How is this a better vision of reality than Newtonian physics? What wisdom has man gained from this exercise? Is one's concept of God expanded by imagining him riding a beam of light? Equations, instruments, and probability theories do not create the universe. What is beyond our ability to experience is beyond our capacity to comprehend empirically. > We did not evolve in a world of quantum effects. We have neither the > senses to apprehend it nor categories of experience to fit it into. ... > The world is not composed of ever smaller BBs bouncing to Newton in > Euclidian space. That much I agree with. > It is made of process and probabilities. Each quantum decision > point is critical to each instant in the flow of time. Each decision > determines the flow of the future and the future is affected by > each probability outcome. Different outcomes, difference futures. That part is pure theory and applies only to a space/time world. I avoid passing judgments on probability theory which only further distances us from the fact that reality is a product of our value sensibility. > You paint us as being doomed to becoming servants to our own > machines and offer a Primary Source as salvation. "In philosophy, > whether it is identified as the Absolute, God, or The One, the > primary source is traditionally alleged to be unified, undifferentiated, > and unalterable. If we assume this to be true, then it follows that the > "first principle"- primary reality - is the opposite of polarized > multiplicity." > > Your logical convolutions flow from this assumption. You reduce > life to negation in its name. Who would choose this kind of salvation? I'm not preaching "salvation", Case. I am postulating a metaphysical ontology. Since I'm not a fiction writer, I don't have Pirsig's skills at wrapping it up as so many euphemisms in a candy box tied with pretty ribbons. Obviously, my ontology has appeal to only a few, and I cannot expect to sell as many books. But I've lived long enough to know the difference between what is superficial and what is fundamental. And while you and your "owner" strive to make sense of the quantum world of appearances, I shall continue to "take joy" in realizing the value of Essence. Cheers, 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/
