Hi Joe --
I have an understanding of your ontology, certainly not as deep as yours, my understanding is of the limited intellectual variety. I appreciate you putting it into words. Because of my limited understanding, I find it a bit thin. How do you explain this separation of Sensibility? Yes, it is a way of looking at awareness, but by creating duality with Essence and its negation you leave some fundamental questions unanswered. Perhaps it is not for us to get more details. When a bubble forms in a glass, that air is estranged from it's source, and momentarily has existence (Sensibility). This kind of explanation gives me a better sense of what you are talking about. Is there meaning to our separation? Is it to observe essence? Did essence need a vacation?
I knew that reducing my ontogency to two short paragraphs would evoke questions, and I'm happy to answer what I can. Actually, your "limited understanding" is right on target, and the questions you've posed are to be expected. What I outlined in the previous post is my personal construct of reality, including the value-sensibility of the self as an 'existent'. The dynamics by which an absolute source gives rise to differentiated entities is pure hypothesis on my part. I've, tried to extend logical reasoning as far as possible in working out my metaphysics, but please don't ask me to support my assertions objectively. (As I've said before, absolute Truth is inaccessible to man, and I have a hunch there's a logical reason for that, as well.)
I do not attempt to "describe" Essence or its "motivation", for the obvious reason that such knowledge is denied to us. It is self-evident, however, that existence is fundamentally divided into subjects and objects, that subjects are aware, and that objects are finite, diverse, and relational. Logically, whatever exists conditionally must have an ultimate, unconditional cause or source. (To deny a primary source leads to the paradoxical infinite regression of prior causes.)
In the 15th century, Nicholas of Cusa [aka Cusanus] developed a theory based on the "not-other" as a symbolic connotation for God. He argued that, although God is indefinable, it can be stated that the world is not God but is not anything other than God. God is "not other", he asserts, because God is not other than any [particular] other, even though "not-other" and "other" [once derived] are opposed. This theory has had a profound influence on me. Not only is it a paradigm for relating "otherness" to the primary source, it offers a non-descriptive connotation for this source whose attributive nature is otherwise ineffable.
Using Cusa's concept of "actualized contrariety", whereby an existent can be defined both positively (in terms of what it is) and negatively (in terms of what it is not), and defining Essence as "all that is" (which is the equivalent of "nothing that is not"), I concluded that Essence can be conceived as both absolute potentiality and absolute actuality without contradiction. And, since negation does not alter the Absolute Source, its manifestation as a 'dichotomy' of nothingness and being is the appearance of differentiated existence.
Your 'bubble in a glass' analogy shows your grasp of the duality principle, so let's use that metaphor. We'll assume that the glass contains water (H2O) in which hydrogen and oxygen are undifferentiated. Let's say that some air (oxygen) is released (negated) from the water, forming a bubble. The gas in the bubble is an analog for individuated Sensibility, while the surrounding water is viewed as Otherness. What separates the two media is the thin sphere of film that differentiates the gas from its aqueous Source. The surface tension that creates this film can be analogized as either the Value of Otherness or the Negation of Beingness. Nothing is lost or gained in this negation; the elements of water simply appear conditionally in a differentiated form.
There you have an empirical model that roughly approximates the negation of primary difference--(Sensibility/Otherness), as well as its individuated subjects and objects. I hope this helps you to conceptualize Creation in a metaphysical context. I'll discuss the moral aspects of this ontogeny (i.e., meaning and purpose) in a later post, although you've probably gathered this from the views I've expressed on individual freedom and value sensibility.
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/
