Greetings Ron [Platt quoted] --
The Quantum revolution is one that got it legs from the
shift in perspective of causality from an essentialist view
to one of a field theory defined in "states".
Max Born had stated that before the twentieth century
Classic Newtonian Physics was dominated by essentialist
assumption. He stated:
* "Causality postulates that there are laws by which the
occurrence of an entity B of a certain class depends on
the occurrence of an entity A of another class, where the
word entity means any physical object, phenomenon,
situation, or event. A is called the cause, B the effect.
* "Antecedence postulates that the cause must be prior to,
or at least simultaneous with, the effect.
* "Contiguity postulates that cause and effect must be in
spatial contact or connected by a chain of intermediate
things in contact."
Therefore, I found it may be arguable to conclude that the
classic notion of "cause and effect" is indeed influenced
by essentialism which indeed is the basis of SOM assumptions.
I think you are confusing Plato's Idealism with Essentialism, which only
recently has been used to designate Platonic Idealism. Plato surmised that
things have "essences" which are the nature of their being, but he did not
call this theory Essentialism. According to his explanation, all entities
have two aspects, "matter" and "form", and it's the particular form imparted
to an object that gives it an identity, "quiddity" or "whatness." That's an
essentialistic ontology rather than a metaphysical cosmology. In fact, it
was this ontology (theory of being) that Aristotle applied to an objectivist
view of reality that was the precursor of scientific metholology. Since
Objectivism rejects monism, it is actually antithetical to Idealism and the
fundamental awareness/otherness (SOM) dichotomy.
I have worked up a short essay that touches on the origin
of essentialism with Parmenides and works from there to
define the origins of "entities".
I would argue as you have done, that the very definition of
"reason" has essentialism built into it.
I'll be eager to read this essay, Ron. Regarding Parmenides, you might be
interested is rviewing Matt Kundert's website in which he quotes David C.
Lindberg as asking:
"What does one do if experience suggests the reality of change, while
careful argumentation (with due attention to the rules of logic)
unambiguously teaches its impossibility? For Parmenides and Zeno, the
answer was clear: the rational process must prevail."[1] ...
And so Parmenides declares that all change is merely an elaborate illusion
and the underlying reality is a completely stable, unchanging monism."
Matt then goes on to show how Plato resolved the paradox by drawing a
metaphysical distinction between "appearance and reality" (i.e., the
dichotomy that both Pirsig and the Objectivists refuse to accept).
[Platt, to Ron]:
You are onto something important in that Pirsig is the only
philosopher I know of who has taken quantum research into
account, namely the discovery that the dualistic mode of
knowing (SOM) with its divisions of subject/object, cause/effect,
mind/matter, etc., is ultimately shortsighted. One need only refer
to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to discover SOM's
blind spot. A higher mode of knowing, the mode acknowledged
so forcefully in the MOQ, is that of pure, direct experience,
prior to any dualistic concepts whatsoever. As William James
observed, "To know immediately then, or intuitively, is for mental
content and object to be identical." Or, as Heisenberg himself said,
" . . . the common division of the world into subject and object,
inner world and outer world, body and soul, is no longer adequate
and leads us into difficulties." And again, as Erwin Schroedinger
put it: "Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them
cannot be said to have been broken down as a result of recent
experience in the physical sciences, for this barrier does not exist."
Oh, but it does, Platt. In fact, the self-other dichotomy is the defining
principle of Existence.
This is what I've been trying to get across to the Pirsigians. Existence is
fundamentally a relational system in which all beingness is differentiated
and value is realized as a polarized spectrum from good to bad, better to
worse, moral to evil, beautiful to hideous, etc. When Heisenberg said that
this "leads us into difficulties," he was talking to physicists who depend
on consistent, reliable data for their conclusions.
Quantum physics pushes experiential data beyond the threshold of human
sensibility, where entitites no longer hold to measurable parameters. That
was the "difficulty". The finite human observer cannot cross the barrier of
existential reality because he himself is an "existent". And William James
was saying that we can only know "intuitively" that awareness and its object
are one. That, I submit to both of you, is metaphysical insight, not
experiential knowledge. A "field theory of states", as Ron describes it, is
still differentiated and relational. According to Essentialism (as I define
it), subject-object realization cannot exist without a "clean break" between
differentiated contrariety and Absolute Essence.
I hope you will forgive my butting into your discussion, but I can't stand
idly by while Essentialism is incorrectly applied to non-metaphysical
scientific and philosophical theories.
Thanks for indulging me in these comments.
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/
