Hi John --
I have no problem with the existence of a self. I have a problem
with "values do not exist outside of a mind" That was specifically
what I asked about so I'm not sure why you took it the direction
you did.
OK. I just needed to establish your belief in the self as "a mind" before
explaining my epistemology. Strange as it seems, some folks here reject
both self and mind as anything but "patterns of Quality" with no individual
focus. For them the concept of subjectivity (proprietary awareness) is
meaningless and the individual self has no more significance than the
nearest rock. Essentialism (a la Ham) posits existence as an
anthropocentric system, which means that I define the world in terms of
man's values and experiences. This is an alien mindset to the MoQists.
And now John understands better where Ham is coming from:
Well this makes more sense to me than a pure subjectivism that
takes self as the source of all thought and everything.
So... your main problem with the MoQ is Pirsig doesn't just go
for a theistic stance? Because I can see lots of good reasons
not to go that way myself. You won't win any friends in the
academic world which has spent years and years breaking free
from the static dogmas of religion and you won't win in any
friends from religion which already figures its got God in
its pocket and doesn't need any new-fangled philosophy.
First of all, I'm not trying to win friends in academia (although it would
be gratifying), and I don't consider Essentialism a theistic philosophy.
Theism is belief in a divine entity, usually described as a personal or
supernatural being who metes out rewards and punishments based on man's
behavior. Essence is neither a personality nor a created entity but the
fundamental source (Eckhart's German term is "istigkeit" which roughly
translates to "IS-ness").
[Ham, previously]:
The individual is a "being-aware". It borrows from biological
beingness to experience the otherness surrounding it. ...
[John]:
Ok, problem one. How can one borrow from "biological beingness"?
I'd say it is just the opposite way. The individual experiences
otherness and extrapolates biological being for itself. If there is an
order to it, it makes more sense that it flows from sense to being
and not the other way around.
An astute observation, John, and you're right, of course. In the temporal
sense all beingness is an extrapolation. But time doesn't factor into my
ontogeny. Functionally, the psychic self is dependent on its biological
counterpart to be aware. Epistemologically, however, the physical body (like
all other beingness) is an experiential construct of value.
But "neither contingent can exist without the other" is true,
and implies the "order" is probably irrelevant.
The particular (empirical) order is not as significant as the fact that
existence is an ordered system.
And what is the cause and evidence of this estrangement from
essence? That is another bald assertion for which I see no reasoning.
My reference in these matters is Royce, who also holds your Essence,
only calls it Absolute Thought; but he doesn't see the need for any
estrangement in order for man to know his freedom.
I'm not familiar with Royce, but Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist, has
theorized "pure consciousness" as "the One, nonderivative Reality." He
calls it "Root Consciousness" as opposed to consciousness as content or a
state of mind. I'll go so far as to say that Sensibility (non-proprietary
consciousness) is fundamental to Essence, but so is potentiality and
beingness. I believe it is beyond man's capability to comprehend, let alone
describe, the ineffable nature of absolute Essence.
Hey, I like that word. Solipsism. Isn't it usually used as a
derogation of a philosophy?
Solipsism is the view that the self is the only existent and that each self
creates its own private reality. The theory doesn't hold water because the
self needs a creator to exist. But, yes, I've been called a solipsist, as
well as an "egoist", by those who don't understand or haven't read my
thesis. It's all spelled out in my website at
www.essentialism.net/mechanic.htm, if you can spare the time to review it.
[Ham]:
The first rule of clear thinking is not to trifle with what is
self-evident. Or, to paraphrase Occam's razor, the simplest
explanation beats out the complex one every time.
[John]:
There's a paraphrase I ain't buying. Often simplistic explanations
are simply wrong. And what may be evident to your self, is not
evident to mine.
Condensed from Wikipedia . . .
Occam's razor is attributed to 14th-century English logician and Franciscan
friar, William of Ockham. It states that the explanation of any phenomenon
should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no
difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or
theory. Often expressed as the "law of parsimony", "law of economy", or
"law of succinctness", it has been translated as: "entities must not be
multiplied beyond necessity."
You have an inquisitive mind, John, and it's a pleasure to talk with you.
I've skirted my ontology in order to address your specific questions. If
you will reciprocate with a summation of your own worldview, we'll can see
where the differences in our thinking lie. That should give us a productive
rationale to work on.
Essentially speaking,
Ham
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