Hi Tim (and Mark who may be listening in) --
No, I meant ignostic, with an 'i'; I was mainly trying to introduce it into the mix. It is a term for one who does not recognize the questions about theism unless things are nailed down with definitions.
Well, if we need another word, I suppose I'd settle for "ignostic".
Anyway, I think the similarities between quality and 'something', and between morality and justice, show why I was so smitten with Lila.
Quality to me means the worth or character of an observed person, thing, or event. This business of treating Quality as a noun is metaphysically useless, unless you believe that quality can stand by itself, which it can't. Like Value, Quality doesn't exist unless it is realized, and it is always realized by the observing subject. Unrealized value is an oxymoron. The process of realizing value is called "sensibility". In my epistemology, the essence of selfness is value-sensibility, and it is experience that constructs sensible value into the objects and events of our world.
Ham, the main thing I want to challenge: "...because it is delineated by nothingness...". For me, "nothing" has no place, because if it did, it would be 'something'. So, I don't really know what you mean here. On the other hand, I thought you captured this thought by saying "Essence has no 'other'". Anyway, an explanation might be helpful. I don't know if "essence" imprints any flavor to 'something'; I prefer 'something', concrete but undifferentiated, but perhaps all 'essence' implies is: essential. Also, in my thinking, the 'essence' which "has no other", might have to give something of itself for us to be here. "Something is" seems to be, to the best of my capacity, true absolutely.
I had this same problem with Mark, which is why I didn't mention "negation" in my last post. Perhaps, if I explain it simply enough, I can make a good case for it.
In the traditional (religious) sense, we envisioned creation as something "added to" the Creator. Thus, when God created man, suddenly there was a new entity existing alongside the Creator. We explained Adam as the son or servant of God. Likewise, every created thing is an "other" to God, and they are all assumed to be "additions" to God's universe.
But, if the Creator is absolute (total "IS-ness", as Meister Eckhart described it), there can be no other beside it. What is already absolute cannot be extended. Cusanus recognized this logic in the 15th century. He defined God as the "Not-other". "The first principle cannot be other, either than an other or than nothing, and likewise is not opposed to anything." How, then, can the universe and everything in it come into being?
Considered metaphysically, existence is constituted of Beingness, Nothingness, and Sensibility. Nothingness is a negate which doesn't exist but is still functional in the triad. According to the law of contradiction, if one element of the triad stands alone, the other two elements are in contradictory identity. Thus, if Nothingness is negated from Essence, Beingness and Sensibility are left as the contradictory "essents". This forms a subject/object duality in which Being is made sensible as the negated subject's awareness of an objective essent - "otherness".
In other words, you and your reality are negated (i.e., excluded) from the absolute source. From the perspective of Essence, anything that "exists" is transitory and finite, and finitude has no place in the Absolute. That's why some here say that the physical universe is "illusory". Now, Mr. Pirsig has tried to circumvent this paradox by positing Quality (DQ) as the primary source which divides into "static patterns' that we recognize as subjects and objects. The power to divide is assumed to be the "dynamic nature" of Quality. But that still leaves us with an illusion without an ontogeny or cause.
The rationale for negation is quite simply that any created thing is a lesser entity than the whole. Since the objects of creation are secondary and inferior to the undifferentiated whole, they can arise only by negation of the whole. There is but one plausible hypothesis to account for the creation of a dynamic, multiplistic universe from a constant, monistic source: Essence is negational. Because Essence is absolute and ubiquitous, there is no other within or beside it. Therefore, in order to create an other, it "invents" one by negation. Like the mountain climber who has ascended to the highest summit and for whom further progress can only be descent, Absolute Essence is the only entity that creates by "exclusion". The potential for actualizing the appearance of contrariety (difference) is innate in its Oneness. And because negation is the potentiality of Essence, which itself is primary, the "cause" and the "source" of creation are one.
This guy that Mark suggested, J. Kaipayil (relationalism.org), suggests that reality is fundamentally unitary and plural at the same time. I think we might all be in agreement here. Perhaps it is that I am trying to see why it MUST BE plural by focussing on the aspect of unity, while you, might, maybe?, bee thinking of the simplest plural: as essence (essential). If this is so, I like the terminology - from that perspective.
Tim, I don't see how aything can be both unitary and pluralistic at ANY time. But I CAN see how Difference can derive plurality from unity, if we allow that Existence is a different mode of reality than Essence. If, by negating nothingness, Essence causes a split or cleavage to appear to an "other", we have a metaphysical basis for creation. I maintain that the cosmic split (division) is between Sensibility and Otherness, that Sensibility/Otherness is the primary dichotomy from which all differentiated phenomena (essents) are made aware.
I came here having a problem with pirsig's 'Quality'. For one, it seemed too simple to produce contradiction, theoretically. For two, even though he asserted that quality was synonymous with morality, we have no way of determining these things objectively, so, for instance, when there is contradiction in real life, one can side with what some would call high quality activities, while others call them criminal, sinful, etc.: criminal syndicates, corrupt schemes, assassinations, etc. and etc. The levels don't provide a means to distinguish immoral from moral quality, but I won't rehash this.
Morality is a wholly separate issue, which I'll be happy to explore with you at a later time. Suffice it to say here that the only essential attributes of the Absolute Source that we can know are Sensibility and Value. Our entire finite world is an intellectual construct of these attributes.
Has my creation hypothesis helped you to understand the function of negation, Tim? Do you at least see that because the subjective self cannot be quantified, localized, or directly observed, it is not an "existent" but a "negate" or nothingness that is totally dependent on the otherness (beingness) which sustains it?
Appreciate your interest, 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
