Hi Ron --
Ham, sorry to take so long responding, your post was somehow placed in my spam box.
Yes, I have been trashed quite a bit lately ;-}.
My only reply is a Quote from Kant "where there is no possibility of experience, there can be no prospect of knowledge either." I simply and humbly offer that your argument is one of pure deduction. What I DO contend is that awareness is a tension of quality, of deduction verified with induction, of singularity and plurality of particular and universal of mind and matter. Calling my view objectivist simply cuts my argument in two for your convieniance of attack. Take for instance the logical consequence of Parmenides which your Thesis walks almost hand in hand with.
Parmenides denied the "reality of change" on the ground that what exists always exists, and change is a logical impossibility. My thesis has this much in common with Parmenides: If his reality refers to ultimate Reality, change is impossible because absolute Essence has no "other" in space or time. To change from one thing or state to an OTHER implies otherness, which violates the definition of "absolute" as well as Cusa's first principle: "the coincidence of contrariety."
Parmenides also denied that anything can come from being or nothingness. To quote from your referenced article:
"Parmenides seems to assume that a thing can come into existence either (a) from being or (b) from not-being. He would rule out (a) on the grounds that a thing can't come into being from itself; he would rule out (b) on the grounds that nothing comes from nothing."
The author then notes the exception dismissed by Parmenides, Pirsig and the existentialists (objectivists) but which is fundamental to Essentialism. ...
"But Parmenides has overlooked the possibility that a thing can come into existence from something else. This would be neither from itself, nor from nothing; since it would be from a different being, it would, in a way, be both from a being and from a not-being."
The "something else" is not a "thing" at all, it is the immutable source of all change and difference. The beginning of change is difference. In logic and mathematics, the first differentiation is a division of the prime (number) into two. In metaphysics, nothingness is the agent of division which results in the existential dichotomy Sensibility/Otherness. Experiential reality (being-aware) is actualized from this dichotomy.
An argument from pure deduction, you say? Probably. But isn't this true of most metaphysical theory, including Pirsig's Quality? We cannot know the ineffable other than by intuitive reasoning, which is what philosophers do.
Thanks for getting back to me, Ron, and enjoy the holiday season. Essentially yours Ham ________________________________ From: Ham Priday <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, December 15, 2008 1:23:34 PM Subject: Re: [MD] The SOM/MOQ discrepancy. Hi Ron -- [Ham, previously]:
Experiential awareness is a contingency of being, but the psychic locus of awareness is not a being, and "oxygen" has nothing to do with it. The power or capacity "to know" does not evolve from nature or the material world. It is derived from the primary dichotomy "Sensibility/Otherness" which actualizes proprietary "being-aware". It is this subjective entity whose experience constructs the relational world of "appearances"--objects and events evolving in space/time.
[Ron]:
Ah! so It is your own contention that if the physical body dissolves the "being-aware" still exists. With this being-aware an expression of the multiplicity of the immutable "one" . ala Parmenides.
Ah ...er, no! Being and awareness are the (mutually dependent) contingencies of conscious experience. You can't have one without the other. You're the logician: Isn't that what a "contingency" means? If there's a more proper term, kindly enlighten me.
Previously I had defined proprietary sensibility (awareness) and otherness (beingness) as "mutually exclusive" essents, which is also true, although you found it logically unacceptable. They are entirely different "entities' drawn together by Value to actualize being-aware. This coupling of two disparate components (essents) is essential for the knowing self.
[Ron];
Interesting, how you view my words as objectivist. However I find some contrarity in the fact that you undercut the very logic you use as a validity to your concepts. In fact if you follow your argument you invalidate your own thesis. Leaving one to only guess at how one comes to the validity of the statements you make. There seems to be no applicable test of worth.
Anyone who maintains that the locus of awareness--the "psychic center of knowing"--is a physical entity derived from nature is an objectivist IMO. The model for philosophical objectivism is the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre who postulated that Being (i.e.. "becoming") precedes Essence. The logical positivists of science follow this model and attempt to explain all the attributes and properties of man, including self-awareness, as a development of biological evolution. As a consequence, we perpetuating a worldview that rejects not only the "soul" of man and his psychic nature but the integrity of the individual self.
Pirsig has relegated value-sensibility, intellect, conceptualization, and even experience to an extracorporeal level so as to rid the world of a "conscious subject". I ask you: What is left of existence except for objective beingness?
I await your clarification of my logic. Thanks, Ron. --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/
