Kieffer --
But your metaphysics of Essence, like any other, is necessarily a model of the principles of reality, history is stored in our brains, history is part of reality and therefor so is mans timeline - your metaphysics must be able to account for it otherwise it is incomplete.
Not only is history "stored in our brains", it is CREATED by our brains. (That's what the word "actualized" refers to.) We actualize the physical world of objects and events in space/time from our value sensibility. But objects changing in time is not Reality. It's the appearance of a relational universe of which we are the locus. If you want to describe the experiential world as a chronology of events, it is well documented in the annals of Science. That is the objectivist (i.e., SOMist view) that Pirsig exhorts us to reject. Therefore, why should I have to explain it to Arlo, of all people, who doesn't accept a primary source, proprietary consciousness, or Value as man's realization of a transcendent Reality?
We are conscious OF value, they are not the same, nevertheless they are both ultimately the indirect product of cause and effect or the forward passage of time.
The passage of time doesn't create anything. Cause-and-effect is the intellectual precept by which we make sense of our differentiated experience, so it's our "creation" too. I define the being-aware as proprietary value-sensibility. It accounts for our experience of a differentiated world. Like Pirsig's Quality, the Value of Essence is the fundamental ground of existence (beingness). It is man who differentiates Value into the appearance of an evolving universe and all the things in it.
In your essentialism yes, but yours cannot have anything to say about the gradual arising of the mind of man.
There is nothing to say about evolution and emergence except that it is the finite, relational experience of human beings. I'm not trying the reinvent the wheel. My ontology isn't about science or anthropology. It's a metaphysics of Ultimate Reality -- that unknown essence which is outside of Pirsig's "static quality" box.
Creationism is non-pragmatic and is the result of the illusion of the self as an etherial entity that will survive after death. It is absolute SOM.
I disagree. The self is not an illusion, but its experience is. Please don't confuse Essentialism with Creationism, Kieffer. The latter is just as much a "chronology of events" as is Darwinism or the Big Bang theory, only with a Divine Being calling the shots. We have to get beyond this "before & after" illusion if we expect to grasp the truth of creation. What IS is absolutely. Nothing in existence is absolute, so the ultimate source of reality cannot be the preceived property of an existent.
In a metaphysical sense 'I' creates. That metaphyics is one of quality.
In what sense are you using the word "quality" here? Do you mean "high quality" or a quality source? Quality must be realized. It's a human assessment of something experienced. There is no quality in the absence of an observer. In other words, quality is a psycho-emotional or intellectual response to that which lies beyond us. Quality (Value) is the metaphysical "object" of individual awareness. It's what we convert into physical objects. But, again, Value differentiated (actualized) as finite objects is not the absolute source.
Then where is the utility of your metaphysics?
Metaphysics is not a "utility" like a power company or the laws of energy conservation. Rather, it's a concept of reality. HOW you "use" it depends on what meaning you glean from it and what affect it has on your life experience. What utility do you think religion, mysticism, or spiritualism has? Essentialism serves the same purpose for those who adopt it as their belief system.
I hope this helps to clarify your problems with my philosophy, Kieffer. But even if it doesn't, I wish you all the joys of Christmas (or the Solstice, should you be of Arlo's persuasion).
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/
