On Feb 2, 2010, at 12:13:52 AM, "Ham Priday" <[email protected]> wrote: From: "Ham Priday" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [MD] The difference between a Monet and a finger painting Date: February 2, 2010 12:13:52 AM PST To: [email protected] Hi Mark --
> Thought I heard some flies buzzing around during our exchange. Yeah. I swatted at one but I think he's still fluttering. > I have no problem with timidity if recognized as such. > What perhaps I hear from you is a need for control. > A need to be the source of all. Underlying the need for control > is basic fear. Why do you think we try to control, and predict? > It is all based on fear. It is fighting the phantoms of the unknown. > This is why science is so important, so that we can temporarily > disperse that fearful feeling. Why do you think all the righteous > posts are dictating the "truth". Without such distraction, > fear creeps in. No, MoQ is not just another religion (I hear), > it is so much more. The fear of religion shines through. > Tho through the valley of death I walk, I will fear no evil. > As Kirkegaard would say, one has to die unto death. > The road to positivity indeed! Where is your road leading you? > Me? I'm as free as a bird, and this bird you cannot change. > (Don't forget the guitar solo). I don't think it's so much as a need for "control" as it is a need to partake of the "real". We emerge from nothingness to exist for an instant of eternity, then return to that nothingness. For that instant we borrow the "being" of our experience to watch an otherness in progress that is the only reality we know. We desperately search for the meaning of our existence, hoping to find a clue in its "being". We delude ourselves into believing that whatever our true reality is, it lies in this other, in this objective projection of our values. The mystics teach that we are One with the universe, that we can contemplatively dissolve the illusion of multiplicity and be absorbed into the All. "Practice," they say; meditate yourself into the Atman." The Western mindset is more objective. It tells us that we're biologically part of this other. Not only our bodies but our self-awareness, thoughts and feelings are functions of bio-psycho-physiological evolution. Modern philosophers, who acknowledge that the "knowing mind" is something different than "being", theorize that consciousness (or its intellectual, moral or esthetic derivatives) must be an aggregate -- a fundamental principle or 'meme' -- of the physical universe. But they have yet to explain the explain the dynamics of this theory. The Essentialist has another otogeny. Selfness in itself is nothingness, non-existent. Its existence is absolutely dependent on the primary source which negates it. The negate cannot participate in the primary source because the Source is absolute and unconditional. Instead, it is drawn to the value of the source which it perceives experientially as the being of otherness. The negate (self) objectivizes Value to identify its proprietary organic being as well as the things and events of an external world. The only "real" component in this valuistic construct is the Value of Essence itself -- the absolute, immutable, unconditional source of all appearance. It is through Value that the negated self realizes (reclaims) its Essential Reality. If you can overdcome your "humility" and put this ontogeny in Pirsig's terms, you'll have an audience of appreciative people. (You'll also prove you are a better philosopher than I am.) Thanks, Mark, and good luck. --Ham Hi Ham, I have an understanding of what you are saying. We have been through this before. As I have said previously (many moons ago), this explanation through negation of (or banishment of, or expulsion from) essence does not provide much as an explanation. A black line on a white paper negates the white. Indeed, sound negates silence. Perhaps a better analogy would be plunging into a very cold pool and loosing one's sense of where and what one was. I once wrote a poem about this to paint the soul's entrance into this confusing world, and not remembering whence it came. Indeed, if the soul is eternal but jumps from body to body (let's say for arguments sake), then there can be no recovery of previous memories, because those reside in the body itself. The only thing that continues is the personal sense of self. This, by the way, also continues if we loose all our memories. The old person is not dead, only his memories, So, if this negation of essence come in the form of a self-identity entering into this world by means of the corporeal, that makes more sense to me, but is lacking For something to be negated, it has to exist before it is negated, just not in the same way. We know fully well what nothingness "feels" like, since we "felt" it for an infinite amount of time before we were born, we just don't remember it because we had no nerves. But we do know what it was. We have the belief in reincarnation, only without residual memory. People like the most recent Buddha do remember previous lives, so perhaps there is a way. Unless of course he was lying or delusional. But there is also the possibility that he was right. This would then be continual cycles of negation, kind of like air circulating through a fish tank over and over, now it negates as a bubble, now it rejoins the air. (an analogy I have used before you may recall). It only defines itself when it is encased by water. However the essence is somehow changed by existence. If one follows the Hindu way, this essence is continually improving itself and paying for previous misdeeds. So yes, by your criteria, selfness is nothingness, and experiences through a physical form aka human body. Where your ontology falls short is how does this form individual sense of self? What, by your ontology creates the self-awareness, as different from another self awareness. It cannot be the body, or neural network elsewise we would be a different person born every day (or minute), ever dying and being reborn as somebody else. It is not the sum total of memories, because this self awareness continues even if one loses his memory. Oh, but as usual I am rambling, but in the words of the great LZ: "Ramble On, And now's the time, the time is now, to sing my song" Give it a shot. Cheers, Mark 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/ 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/
