To those whose metaphysical quest has been preempted by the pursuit of "the
intellect" --
Now that we have the intellect squared away, or at least in the throes of
being defined, I would like to take up the most fundamental of all
questions -- What is Reality and how does it create?
Inasmuch as the world, the individual, experience, and intellectual thought
all participate in Reality, it seems to me that this is logically the first
question a philosopher should be obliged to answer. There's a method to my
madness, of course, and your answers can help resolve a logical problem in
my metaphysics that I've been struggling with for years. It concerns the
'ex nihilo' principle, which has been disputed by some here (for the wrong
reasons, I believe), but I may have an explanation that will satisfy them.
As a universal principle, I think most of us would agree that we can't get
something from nothing. Getting something from nothing refutes the laws of
logic, thermodynamics, relativity, and cause-and-effect. Even an
evolutionist understanding of creation places the beginning as the "first
cause", whether it's a big bang or an unbalanced mass of energy. Few, if
any, physicists accept the idea that an absolute void can give rise to
anything, let alone an infinite universe. Yet, the universe was created
and does exist, and I've been criticized for stating that nothingness is the
ground of its existence. Okay, so far?
Well, I'm about to propose that there is a singular variance to this rule
and I'll explain it using analogies, so please withhold your logical
arguments until you have a grasp of the concept. My idea has to do with the
reduction of an absolute.
Pretend for a moment that absolute reality is a solid block of concrete, a
block so large that it has no boundaries. Now, suppose a fracture occurs in
this concrete monolith, effectively dividing it in two. Since the block
occupies all of space, the "crack" would necessarily be infinitesimal, like
the imaginary line that serves to describe geometric figures. Nonetheless,
for all practical purposes, the block has undergone a difference: it is no
longer a unity but has spawned an "other" by virtue of that infinitesimal
fissure.
In my website thesis I use the analogy of the mountain climber who has
ascended to the highest summit and for whom further progress can only be
descent. Both analogies demonstrate that an absolute source is the singular
entity for which creation, difference, or the appearance of otherness is
exclusionary rather than additive. Note that they do not refute the 'ex
nihilo' principle. They do not assume nothing as the primary source. What
they suggest is that for an absolute source the creation of difference is
"reductive" in nature. Only an absolute entity creates by "exclusion",
which is to say that existence is not something "added" to nothingness but,
rather, the potential of nothingness to create the appearance of divided
otherness.
Whether you call the primary source God, Supreme Being, Dynamic Quality, the
Intellectual Level, Sensibility, Consciousness, Atman, or Life-force, if you
believe that this source is absolute, I submit that the ontogeny of creation
must follow the principle of negation (i.e., exclusion or reduction) as
outlined above.
I doubt that you'll find any clarifying statements from Pirsig on this
topic, but would like to see how you respond and to what extent you agree
with this proposition.
Thanks, folks.
Ham
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