On 4/12/10 at 1:55 AM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote:
I do believe Ham, that you and I and Ellul are in accord on this matter.
As my post concerning the false conflation of truth and reality supports.
I'm not acquainted with Ellul, but am pleased that you concur with my "S/O
view" of metaphysical reality.
Since you referenced your insightful essay on 'The Physics of Metaphysics',
I would like to offer a cosmology that may give it more meaning:
Truth is the absolute or eternal.
We are not able even to approach its outskirts.
I agree that Truth, like Value and Meaning, is absolute, and we can only
know these absolutes in a relational or differential sense. Human beings
are the "realizers' of relative truth. We bring universal order into finite
existence in accordance with Absolute Truth, and the relational universe
represents our realization of Value. This would not be possible if we were
not metaphysically linked to Value. Which is why I maintain that the
individual self is essentially value-sensibility, or (in an ontological
sense) the value "agent". Without this sense of value the human individual
would be no more than any other biologically-dependent organism whose habits
and propensities are determined by Nature.
Perhaps something like this is implied in these two paragraphs:
Truth remains truth in relation to and in spite of everything.
It is firm, stable, hard, and irrefutable. We must not relativize it
just because science has changed. We must not say that
yesterday's truth becomes today's error. We must not become
so extremely liberal that we say everything is relative, so that one
person can be just as right as the person who says the opposite.
If truth is truth even beyond the limits of our grasp and our
approximation, it *exists*. And that settles it. Heraclitus says
something that does not vanish, and his statement falls within
the scope of truth.
What would become of us if we could grasp truth with unvarying
precision and express it without the slightest imperfection or without
any uncertainty? What would happen if the means were perfectly
adequate for expressing truth? Such a situation would be dreadful
and completely unlivable We would be pinned down once and for all
in a butterfly museum. We would be there in all our splendor, unable
to move any more, because everything would be said, closed up,
and finished: perfect.
As I wrote in my thesis...
"If you were suddenly granted the key to all knowledge, including the
origin, meaning and destiny of your life - complete with a timetable - would
it be a gift or a curse? Would you be content with the prospect of never
having to make a choice, feel surprise, or ponder an unknown fate? Or would
this wisdom reduce your life-experience to that of a robotized creature,
automatically running its prescribed course under the control of an external
source?"
Indeed, life would have no meaning if we were born with the knowledge of
Absolute Truth. Conversely, in the absence of a sensible agent there would
be no realization of Value. We exist on the periphery of the Absolute
Source so that Value is accessible to us incrementally and differentially,
and so that we may be awed by the realization of a reality greater than what
existential experience reveals.
Marsha and others here are persuaded that "no Primary Source is required."
However, if you are open to the possibility of a 'divine plan', such an
ontology is surely worth your consideration.
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/md/archives.html
