Dear Mark --
Using words as metaphors or fuzzy descriptors, has its limitations, I know. I have tried to draw a picture of the double or secondary negation, and I have looked at math. It is still something that doesn't quite click for me like it does for you. The term finite beingness is interesting. From the physical point of view I see this as being what I experience. What this means in terms of possible being, I cannot say. "The negative image" points to the two intertwined objects in the symbol of Tao. The symbols are images of each other defined by the boundary. In the case of man for example, the boundary itself is a negative image, one of environmental pressure if you will. We cannot go beyond that because it is a mold. This can also be extended to the mind. "As above so below" would be another approximation which would encompass a three dimensional boundary.
I empathize with your difficulty in comprehending my negation concept. Perhaps "negation" is the wrong term for nothingness derived from Essence. I'd rather concede that than remain incomprehensible. So that we don't get hung up over terminology, let me try to express my ontology in a different way -- as a paradigm like those you've hinted at. First, however, let me frankly express my reservations about the Metaphysics of Quality and its esteemed author.
I think Pirsig privately admired the "logical positivists" that he publicly condemned. Otherwise, why would he scrupulously avoid positing anything that would suggest a Creator or a supernatural principle? The Reality Pirsig deals with is strictly limited to what non-Pirsigians would call "the objective universe." Even DQ, which he develops as his primary reality, is left undefined on the ground that "defining it would diminish the concept," and "everybody knows what Quality is." Those conclusions lack credibility for me. Pirsig wanted his philosophy to be acceptable to atheists, agnostics, and the New Age secularists of our postmodern era. "Metaphysics" was simply a useful label by which to market his morality thesis in the semi-autobiographical novel format.
Mark, what I call "finitude" is the world we live in. It's a fractionated, individuated, multi-level space/time world where creatures, plants, and a diversity of things emerge, undergo cause-and-effect changes, and then return to the dust from whence they came. Since natural phenomena are programmed by genetics and the forces of nature, it seems reasonable for the Darwinists to dismiss Intelligent Design is just an argument from ignorance, i.e., plugging a Creator into the gaps of scientific understanding.
But [to paraphrase a flyer just received from Human Events], as William Dembski and Jonathan Witt argue in their new book on the subject, the ID theory is based on a host of discoveries from biology to astronomy about what scientists DO know. Whereas conclusions reached by the scientific method are dependable because they can be falsified, Darwinism is the lynchpin of philosophical materialism which is deeply entrenched in today's academic, legal and media establishment. ID in contrast, follows the evidence wherever it leads -- even if it points to a Creator. (For example, the authors show that it's mathematically impossible for even the simplest creature to evolve through "random variation", given the limits of time and space in the universe.)
Now, you may consider evolution "an illusion", an effect of Quality" or "the natural progression of a moral universe"; but such explanations don't account for the origin of this process or its reason for being. Since every "being" is delineated or limited in space and time, it is fallacious to regard Being -- even in its "supreme" form -- as the ultimate reality. And, since Quality and Morality simply don't exist without man's sensibility and reason, I conceptualize existence as that phase or mode of Essence whereby its Value is incrementally realized by a free agent. My paradigm here is that of the individual self looking at its Absolute Source from the "outside", as it were, and creating an objective reality to represent the value realized.
Value-sensibility is as close to physical non-existence (nothingness) as any known entity can be; yet the Self is the cognitive locus of all that exists. That's why I put so much emphasis on "nothingness" as the antithesis of Essence, and why I attribute its actualization to a "negational" Source. Lastly, inasmuch as Sensibility and Value are both derived from Essence, it logically follows that their experiential counterparts are the individual's link to the Absolute.
Hope the above is a less confusing and somewhat more illuminating synopisis of Essentialism.
Cheers and warm regards, 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
