Greetings, John --
Questions Ham,
What is sorely lacking in classical philosophy is the concept
of a sensible agent that exists independently of the essential
source, yet is intrinsically aware of its value.
What does "independent existence" look like and how do you
know it is real?
You're looking at it. You assume it's "real" because it's the only reality
you experience.
While we both experience an objective world with a common history and
properties, it's self-evident that my awareness is not the same as yours.
It should also be self-evident that the experienced world of beingness is
not the self that knows it. Rather, the objective world appears to exist
apart from the Knower as a self-sustained system of its own, whether we
exist or not. That makes our existence as "knowers" independent of the
world's existence as "being". You will say this is just SOM speak, and
that's true. Existence--the universe we inhabit--is divided into subjective
"selves" and objective "otherness". It takes such a duality (dichotomous
contingency) to make the world exist. And although we depend on this
natural world for our existence, our awareness of it is independent of its
being.
Incidentally, I discovered a philosophical explication of Essence
in my re-reading of one of my favorite books, the other day,
The River Why. Have you read it?
I noticed the front cover of the book proclaims, "In the company
of Catch-22 and Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."
Which must have been why I first picked the book up years ago.
Although truthfully, I'm a bit puzzled over the equating of ZAMM
and Catch-22.
No, I can't say I've read it. I assume the fisherman who wrote it grew up
in the flower-child generation who were attracted to books like ZAMM. But I
see they're making it into a movie, and I think I'll wait to see that before
purchasing any more Pirsig-related books.
Thanks for the reference, though, John.
Happy year 2010,
Ham
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