Hi again, Mark --
[Previously]:
As you know, I am in tune with free choice. I would just not use it as an argument for creating morality. Our choice is in which morality to follow. In my sense of things, such morality already exists. The code of behavior is a rationalization of what would be termed an irrational awareness of an existing thing.
On re-reading your analysis tonight, I got a strange feeling of deja vu, and I realize it's because someone whom we both know is pushing the same cosmology, albeit in different terms. He calls it "perfecting the noumenal I am". You call it "morality". But the underlying concept is that Free Will is the ability of the conscious subject to choose one course of action from "all possible actions", the idea being that the "soul" is essentially the "infinite possibility" of choices. I do not subscribe to that view for the following reasons..
1. Infinite possibility implies that the individual psyche or self is "one possible actualization" of the cosmic soul [read: "collective consciousness"], thus nullifying the need for an Absolute Source.
2 As a moral concept, it means that Quality (Value) is not intrinsically "good" or "better" but a homologous aggregate that has no valuistic meaning until a choice is made.
3. Free choice is a matter of individual "preference" which is ruled out, since without valuistic motivation, decisions are reduced to random possibilities rather than value affirmation.
In terms of your ontology, perhaps I could say that mini-Essence is experiencing absolute Essence. That is, Essence creates a satellite to experience itself. We have discussed this in the past, so I will not elaborate. Marsha would point to the notion of co-arisings, which is equally oblique.
It's remarkable to what lengths a philosopher will go in order to refute absolutism. Making "gods" of ourselves seems to be a favorite example. Positing the individual as "patterns of Quality" is an obvious variant of this approach, as is a mini-essent, Absolute-Essence paradigm.
By definition, human individuals cannot be "made of", "parts of", or "beings of" an Absolute Source. The only logically acceptable relation of the differentiated agent to the undifferentiated Source is an absolute relation: that of a nothingness (negate) to Essence. With Value as the common denominator between physical and metaphysical reality, the subjective agent affirms the Value of Essence by negating the otherness of its own being.
Well this discussion certainly makes me think. I find it most rewarding. It is not a matter of Quality reigning over Essence, or the other way around. Perhaps we could consider the two concepts as two sides of a coin. We do not need to toss the coin, just hold it. I obviously have my own interpretation of Quality, and as such I am not against harmonizing. If both are real, that is the only thing we can do.
It's not that one reigns over the other. It's that all that we know of Essence is Value. But you're right that the paradox can be likened to the two sides of a coin. The sides (existence and metaphysical reality) are divided; the coin (Essence) is one. As long as there are two sides, you are a winner however the coin lands.
I like the sound of your harmony, 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
