Good morning, Gentlemen --
On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 12:15 PM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote:
[Mark, previously]:
Yes, codependent arising, whatever that means,
endless cycling into emptiness without beginning.
[John]:
I don't understand "cycling into emptiness without
beginning". What I mean by codependent arising is
two or more things which cannot exist without each
other. In such a case, neither could be fundamental
to the other, because they are both fundamental
to each other.
[Mark]:
Yes, I think I understand the concept of codependent arising.
If two things arise together, before that was there unity,
or nothingness? Either way, they are both unity. So one
thing rises into two which support each other. This is only
true of one is looking for beginning, or underlying nature of
underlying nature. So, the dynamics of the yin and yang
can be seen for what it is, or one can ask how or why.
Both are questions that imply a creative process. Sure, one
can stop at codependent arising and say that this is enough
depth.
There IS NO nothingness, which is why there is no otherness in Reality.
The conclusion we can draw from this is that Existence is an "illusion" or
(to borrow Hegel's word) "appearance". Existence is a world of appearances
where the phenomena experienced reflect the 'IS-ness' of the Absolute Source
differentially.
I'm not sure who introduced the term "co-dependent arising", but it's an
appropriate metaphor for the dichotomy I have postulated as Self/Other.
Only a conscious agent (self) can realize the value of an Other, so I've
called the realizing self 'Sensibility' and its objective referent 'the
Value of Other'. What, then, is this "other" that is realized by the
conscious self?
In a "quantitative sense", it's the Absolute Source less the sensibility of
its co-dependent agent (self). Metaphysically, it is Essence realized
valuistically by a negated subject whose existence is totally dependent on
the Value of its Source (essent-value). Thus, for simplicity sake, we can
call this simulated or actualized other the "essent" and the value-sensible
self the "negate". These are the terms I have adopted for the ontogeny of
Essentialism. Co-dependency is a fitting description for this dichotomous
relationship.
The Source, however, is neither dependent nor relational, which is why
negation is the 'causa-sui' of created existence. What is absolute in
essence can create an other only by negating it -- by denying its otherness,
thereby actualizing a "synthetic reality" in which appearances represent the
Value of Essence from the perspective of an other. Mark has come up with
an apt euphemism for this relational perspective: "Absolute Essence seeing
itself":
[Mark]:
Logically, the ultimate cause is that one creating the presence
of interdependence. We rationally think that for there to be
interdependence something must have caused it. By cycling
into emptiness, I mean that each thing has a cause before it,
so we go all the way back until there is nothing. If there is
nothing then, there is nothing now, since something does not
come from nothing. So we have swapped the words
"Everything" for "Nothing", and we are left with rhetoric
instead of truth, which is what Pirsig states. It is how one
creates it, not how one finds it. Once we realize that our
sense of intellect and communication and investigation and
reality is like the growing hum of a bee-hive, then we are free
to create and are not restricted by things that we feel are true.
[John]:
Nagarjuna's idea that "even causes and conditions are empty
of inherent existence or essence" sounds very much like a
formulation that would irritate Ham, and delight Marsha,
and thus it seems to me that I'm picking sides in an old
argument when I embrace this doctrine. And yet, it does
make sense to me for I cannot see any other way to explain
the fact that without consciousness there can be any value,
and without value there can be no consciousness. They are
either the same thing, or aspects of the same thing.
[Mark]:
I do not think this would irritate Ham since he would also
ascribe to the interrelated nature of Absolute Essence and
Value. Without Value we would not know that there was
Absolute essence, so I guess it is a moot point. The key
word is inherent, that is arising independently.
My interpretation of Essentialism is that things cannot arise
independently, they are dependent on Absolute Essence.
So, in some ways, I think Ham is a Buddhist. My opinion
of course.
Ham is not a Buddhist, Mark. But neither is he "irritated" by these
concepts of
"independent arising" and "value without consciousness". As you correctly
point out, Essentialism does not rule out Value or Sensibility as coherent
in Essence, but there is no way to describe the Oneness of Essence in
symbolic language. Suffice it to say that nothing we feel or experience can
have any more truth or significance
than the ultimate source from which it is derived. Human understanding at
its best is imperfect and transitory because it is contaminated by our own
nothingness.
Thanks for both of your analyses. From where I sit, they've made the
ontology of Essence far more comprehensible.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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