Hi Ham, Looks like you are being kept busy. My question was what do you mean by experienceable. I think you answered the question below, which is along the same lines I was thinking, or maybe not. I was pointing to the idea that we can have concepts that are not experienceable. We imagine them. In the same way, you imagine there to be an absolute essence. I have no problem with that, it is not that far off from other concepts of what is behind all of this.
I can see that we have physical entities and non-physical entities. Love would be a non-physical entity. We can't measure it, but it certainly exists. For me Eckhart's notion of Is-ness is the notion of presence. All presence is connected by being present. In many ways it connect to the concept of ultimate synchronicity. The notion of Not-other, if I understand you correctly would also be what I refer to as presence. You have a unique way of describing the dichotomy of Is-ness and its complete opposite, in the context we are using it. I think it has value, however, it places our awareness in a very powerful place, which Eckhart would disagree with. This is where I differ from you. In my view, we are the product, not the creator. This outlook simply recognizes what I extrapolate from my common sense. But I guess you already knew my view. Keep going, I get little pieces here and there. Cheers, Mark On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 9:54 AM, Ham Priday <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Mark -- > > [Ham, previously]: > > >> The truth of the matter is that what is not experienceable >> to human beings is indefinable. Therefore, attempts to define >> ultimate Reality as a qualitative abstraction, such as Being, >> Consciousness, Energy, Value, or Goodness are no more >> valid than equating it to a known physical entity. >> Nicholas of Cusa in the 15th century came up with the >> principle of the 'Not-other', which is arguably the best >> working definition possible for metaphysical reality. > > [Mark]: >> >> I am not sure what you mean by experienceable. There are >> many things that we cannot experience, yet have a concept for. >> We cannot experience a complete vacuum, but we can define it. >> We cannot experience life ever after, but we can define it. >> We have the ability to extrapolate to that which we cannot >> experience. Like: "It feels like this, only 10 times as strong", >> or, "Bosons exist according to the math, but they have no mass". >> >> Just because we cannot experience something, doesn't mean >> that we can't create the experience for it. > > In terms of validity, your statement above should contain the words > "less valid" instead of "more valid". In my opinion. > > A perfect vacuum is definable as the absence of air pressure. It's > experienceable in terms of partial vacuums, such as the suction developed by > a vacuum cleaner. We can conceptualize "life ever after", but we can only > define the concept because we cannot experience nothingnes. An > "extrapolation" is not a definition. In short, we disagree that defining a > concept is the same (or as valid) as defining an experienced physical > entity. > > Cusa's First Principle defines the "concept" of the 'Not-other', not the > experience, so it's not a "valid" definition. But in metaphysics it's the > concept that we are after, and Cusa has given us a "handle" with which to > deal with what is otherwise ineffable; namely, the Absolute Source. It > works for me in the same way as does Meister Eckhart's 'IS-ness'. > > Thanks, Mark. > > 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 > 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
