Greetings, Kieffer [Arlo mentioned] --
Since I haven't had the pleasure of talking to you, you are excused for suggesting exactly what my ontogeny is NOT:
Perhaps Ham is closer to a deist - a God or fundamental particle that does its bit and then sits back while the universe unfolds - no dogma, no religion.
If you will not read my thesis at www.essentialism.net/mechanic.htm (at least before allowing Arlo to persuade you otherwise), allow me to correct your speculative assertion.
Essence is not a deity or a particle that creates a big bang and "then sits back while the universe unfolds." That's the dogma I'm trying to do away with.
The very idea of the universe unfolding in time, like a wound clock automatically unwinding, is the illusion of finite awareness which experiences reality incrementally, as a time continuum. Space/time awareness is the mode of human experience. Essence is not subject to such dimensions. It transcends (encompasses) evolution and process because it is immutable and undifferentiated. That's why it is incapable of finite description.
All logicial propositions are based on the relational system we call existence. Everything that exists is differentiated from every other by the nothingness that divides them. Essence knows/has no nothingness; it is not an 'existent' but absolute potentiality. Creation is not something "added" to a deity, but a negation (i.e., reduction) of Essence to actualize Difference. This difference is what characterizes all of nature, including the value-sensible agent that views reality as a relational process.
My philosophy (Essentialism) is predicated on an immanent Source whose reality is known to us only by its Value. As value-sensible agents, we are drawn to the source fundamentally by the will or "instinct" to survive, philosophically by the need to "know", aesthetically by the attraction to symmetry and order, and emotionally by our human compassion. Thus, value is what drives mankind from differentiated existence back to the uncreated Source. In other words, Essentialism is an anthropocentric concept of reality. The mistake of Pirsig and his interpretors is to posit Value (Quality) as primary to existence, thereby rejecting the individual subject without whose realization there would be no value.
Now I ask you: is that Theism or Deism? If you still think it is, then be my guest. In philosophy it's the concept, not the label, that prevails, as Arlo certainly knows.
Thanks for this opportunity to clarify my views, Keiffer. Now that we're acquainted, I look forward to exchanging ideas with you.
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/
