Ham--
[Platt]
> > No doubt science comes a cropper when it tries to explain
> > beginnings. It latches onto determinism with a vengeance,
> > but becomes all wimpy when asked to explain what caused
> > the Big Bang or how life emerged from swamp mud.
> > Logic too melts at beginnings, tumbling into infinite regress
> > without even trying. So I'm led to believe, "Something else
> > is going on, I know not what."
>
> An honest response, I suppose, but a spineless one from a philosophical
> viewpoint. For someone who defends a political position as vigorously as
> you do, I must say your apathy concerning the nature of reality is
> surprising. Clearly you smell the flowers and savor the beauty in your
> passage through existence, but are you really content to live out the
> remainder of your life suspecting that "something else is going on", yet
> not
> venturing a guess as to what it may be? I find that somewhat
> incredulous.
I can guess until the cows come home, but to think I have "the answer"
strikes me as the height of arrogance, a low value.
> Not to get overly personal, Platt, but were I to know you better I'd
> likely
> discover something in your upbringing or background that accounts for such
> complacency.
Likewise I'd likely discover something in your background that accounts for
your certainty that you have "the answer.".
> > A biologist's "Shazam" is his exclamation at witnessing
> > a miracle, the same sort of reaction your may have had
> > when you created the notion of an uncreated Creator.
> > It's equivalent to "Eureka" and "Oops."
>
> I note that you're quite vocal in your criticism of Science. (That, too,
> relates to your personal experience.) I was educated in the sciences, and
> most of my working career has been involved with the electronics and
> chemical industries. Although I realize the philosophical limitations of
> the scientific approach, I can't fault a methodology that has effectively
> applied objective knowledge to products and solutions for virtually every
> practical human need. In all fairness, the "Oops factor" criticism is
> valid
> only with respect to ultimate, non-objective questions which are outside
> the
> domain of Science.
Well, that's the problem isn't it -- the belief that subjective values are
outside the domain of science? But are they? See Pirsig's answer in Lila..
> > So does Essence exist or not? To quote a familiar philanderer,
> > I guess, "It depends on what your definition of is, is." :-)
>
> I won't equivocate in the Clintonian style. The technically correct
> answer
> is that Essence (itself) does not exist, although of course it encompasses
> existence. Now, before you accuse me of another "self-contradiction", let
> me remind you that existence itself is an arrangement of objects
> (existents)
> separated from each other by nothingness. So, technically, it's a system
> of
> things (that exist) and voids (that don't exist). To get more
> "technical",
> scientists have calculated the critical density of interstellar space as
> equivalent to about one hydrogen atom per cubic meter. Since 90% of the
> atoms in the universe are hydrogen, and the mass of a hydrogen atom is
> contained in a single positively charged proton encircled by an electron,
> the universe is mostly empty space (i.e., nothingness).
According to your definition of existence, values don't exist.
> > Well my logic tells me there must be nothing for there to be
> something.
>
> True, as I've explained above. However, even nothingness is relative (as
> it
> relates to "thingness"), so that having a system of disparate objects
> divided by nothingness presupposes a creator.
Values are things divided by nothingness?
> > Pirsig's Quality is undefined so it remains neither created or
> uncreated.
> > In that respect it's like Beauty. We know it exists because it is an
> > experience, but be damned if we can define it. All we can do is say,
> > "See for yourself."
>
> Beauty is an esthetic value, just as morality and ethics are social
> values.
> We apprehend value in a relational sense, as applied to objects and
> events.
> But Value does not exist apart from the absolute source, and the
> relational
> values we sense are not existents, as are objective phenomena. The values
> of experience are intellectualized differentially from Essence, which (as
> I
> stated above) is a non-existent.
So in your view values don't exist ("values we sense are not existents")
Perhaps you mean values don't exist in the same sense that cars, buses and
trains exist. Likewise, a metaphysics doesn't exist. But have you spelled
out the difference between the existence of cars and the existence of
theories? If so, I missed it.
> Let me paint my concept of Value in what hopefully will be a more
> comprehensible scenario. Our human world is not Essence, and we ourselves
> are negated from it. That's what makes us "free agents". But, like the
> parable of the Prodigal Son, as 'negates' of Essence, we are drawn back to
> our Creator by its Value to us, thus completing the circle of existence.
> This Value is what our experience converts to "being in the world", and we
> synthesize it as a relational space/time system in which we participate as
> observers. In other words, we are the agents who realize Value as beauty,
> truth, love, goodness, order, etc. (as well as their negative
> equivalents),
> and that realized Value becomes our inextricable link to our estranged
> source.
With all due respect, what you have just written is incomprehensible to me.
> For me the answer falls into the category of, "Something else is
> > going on." I like Wittgenstein's statement: "Whereof one cannot
> > speak, thereof one must be silent." Or as aptly summed up by
> > my late father, "I love a tree."
> >
> > But since I enjoy our conversations so much, silence becomes
> > impossible.
>
> I appreciate the sentiment you feel on confronting the mystery (or
> miracle)
> of existence. But I am more of a sleuth than you in my efforts to solve
> it.
> I, too, enjoy our dialogues, and hope that my
> bold explications have not disturbed your silence.
My "sleuthness" regarding answers to fundamental mysteries has been
satisfied to date by Pirsig's metaphysics until something better comes
along. No offense but I don't find your Essence to be better, no doubt due
to my "upbringing and background." :-)
Best regards,
Platt
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