Hi Michael --
Some questions on your Essentialism:
Okay.
Are you saying that without a sensible value agent the "concept" of
reality is meaningless, or rather more straightforwardly that reality
still exists, just without meaning? Isn't the latter a little like the "if
a
tree falls in the woods" question?
Since I don't want to get into a contest as to whether a concept is
"reality", or vice-versa, I'll simply say that existence is meaningless
without a sensible agent. (Existence is the MoQ's primary reality, anyway.)
I contend that the agent's value-sensibility "creates" the things and events
that constitute experiential existence. Yes, it's like the tree falling in
the woods with no one to observe it, except that the continuity and
universality of existence is ensured by the same value that defines its
constituents. So Essentialism is not exactly solipsism.
You refer to the "role" of a sensible agent. Doesn't "role" imply
purpose? If so, what is the purpose of Value, and how was/is it\
that it came into being?
Role does imply purpose, and so do I. The "moral principle" here is quite
simple. The purpose of Value is to be realized, and the role of the agent
is to realize it. The second part of your question involves ontogeny, which
is not so simple. Suffice it to say that the agent is estranged from the
primary source (Essence) at its inception, and can only experience its Value
relationally and incrementally as being-aware. (More on Creation follows
below.)
If as we have discussed you feel Value does not exist except in the
sensing, was there Value prior to the existence of sensing agents?
Is it not just as likely that Value is simply a by-product of the sensing
agent having a sensing ability rather than the agent being a product of
Value? In other words: isn't your "Value" what it is just a by-product
of sensing agents being able to sense something? I guess this is a
chicken/egg question.
I define Value as "the relational affinity for the wholeness of Essence
which binds subject to object." My Creation hypothesis is predicated on a
negation by Essence such that Sensibility is provisionally separated from
the source. This establishes primary "Difference" as a
Sensibility/Otherness dichotomy from which individual subjects and objects
arise in time and space. Although, theoretically, Sensibility is the
"potential for Value", as a negate, Value is not realized until it becomes
proprietary to a being-aware -- the sensible agent (i.e., subject) whose
experience objectivizes existence.
Your intuition is right on the mark, Michael! I hadn't thought of it this
way, but Value is, indeed, "a by-product of the agent's sensing ability"
rather than a product of Value. However, the "something" the agent senses
(pre-experientially at least) is not a "thing" but the Otherness which
represents the essential half of the dichotomy.
Incidentally, this isn't a "chicken & egg" question until you introduce
"before" and "after" into the ontogeny. You have kindly spared me that
dilemma by your careful choice of the present tense.
From the questions you ask, I suspect that you've had at least a sneak peek
at my on-line thesis. (Typically the first round of questions is at a much
lower level of comprehension.) How good are you at logic? I could use some
help with the "negation" theory which still doesn't pass muster for the
logicians I talk to.
Thanks for your interest in my philosophy of Essence, Michael. I look
forward to further discussion, either on the MD or off-line, at your
discretion.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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