MP: Ham, you nailed it. Thank you. I especially like the description "estranged from the undifferentiated source of our being."
> On 2/7 at 12:24 PM MP wrote: > > > I do not deny that belief in God is culturally derived. > > What I am saying is that belief in g*d is deeper than culture. > > That it is some sort of inner human drive to seek > > transcendence. I dare say it is an innate (an not > > un-importantly notably unique) human drive to seek > > Quality in existence, Quality that transcends existence. > > That this need becomes manifest in culture and brings us > > God is not in question, but in its pure form it it is something > > else (hence: g*d). In my pedantry on this topic I am simply > > seeking to delve into what that something else is, > > esp. v.v. MoQ's Quality. > > > > And on topic; it is as such distinctly different from epistemology; > > it is precisely a drive to transcend the epistemological tableau > > in its entirety. Akin to the difference between knowledge > > and understanding. > > By anyone's standards, this is a high-quality affirmation of man's innate > spirituality. Even the nihilists here would be hard pressed to deny the > "human drive to seek transcendence," athough they would insist that this is > a static pattern of value moving toward Dynamic Quality. > > The key word in this statement is "seeking". What we seek objectively we > desire subjectively. Or, as Sartre put it, "we want the being of the other > for ourselves". But because each self is estranged from beingness in its > dichotomous condition of being-aware, our desire to "possess" the being we > seek remains unrequited. As conscious beings we are left to realize value > indirectly, in our experience of emerging things and their sensible > properties. Since all knowledge is derived from the experience of finite > being, we never know the value we seek "in its pure (or absolute) form". > Primary value is not an object that can be realized subjectively, which is > why we refer to it as "transcendent". > > Now, whether you choose to call this transcendent value Quality, Divinity, > Potentiality, Spirit, God, or Essence, I submit that it is the ultimate > source of all experience and the driving force of human action. Putting > aside the analogies and labels that divide us philosophically, we all share > a common existential deficiency -- as human beings we are estranged from the > undifferentiated source of our being. Yet, while we may choose to deny this > truth, we are all equipped with the sensibility and reason to affirm it. > > Unless I have misunderstood the thrust of Michael's statement, it is a > persuasive argument for including theistic, valuistic, metaphysical, and > nihilistic viewpoints in a forum dedicated to an exploration of Pirsig's > Quality thesis. It will be interesting to see what objections, if any, are > raised against this argument. > > 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/
