Krimel -- [Ham, previously]: > According to Pirsig's MoQ and Priday's Essentialism, > experience creates the universe.
[Krimel]: > This is an easily abused notion. Experience is a process > of acquiring and categorizing sense data. Don't you think > it is slightly relevant how this process works? If you make the object of experience your primary reality, then you and your subjective sensibility are derived from it, and "the data" are more fundamental than the experience. That's not how the process works. The physical aspects of existence have their basis in the valuistic sensibility of the subject. [Krimel]: > Intrinsic or not these laws, the stuff we can say about nature, > are not arbitrary either. We don't just make them up. They must > withstand scrutiny. What we can say about them is limited by > how well experience conforms to our descriptions and visa versa. Why should experience conform to a "description"? On the contrary, our objective description of reality comes from our observation of it, which is experience. [Krimel]: > Just saying that something "has to be fundamental" does not > make it so. Why is anything like this "required"? > You say it is, but not why. The nihilist who rejects a primary source denies his own essence as well. [Krimel]: > Here is a concrete example of sensibility of net value: > family resemblance. > Take any large family of your acquaintance. After you know > a lot of family members, you begin to see this family resemblance. > It is not as though the family members are identical. > Various members may have similar features; uncles with the > same nose, sisters with similar ears, hair color and texture > etc. It is not as though any particular trait or cluster of traits is > universal to the family. But certain features appear often > enough that you begin to see the "family resemblance". > It is a fuzzy set but it is detectable by most of us. Resemblance is a corollary of difference, just as evil is a corollary of morality. We live in a differentiated world of contrasts and relations because it is a finite manifestation of Essence divided by Nothingness. [Krimel continues]: > You could say that this set, shared in part by all members > but possess in full by none of them is the "essence" of the > family's phenotype. Essences are sensed as difference and > compiled into similarity. Essence is not something that exists > independently and produces sensation it is something > that is derived from sensation. The idea that things are "essences" is a platonic misconception. There is no such thing as a differentiated Essence. Essence is absolute and indivisible. We are sensible only of the value of Essence, and we break this value down into the objects of our experience. If you make "sensation" primary to essence, you have a subject without an object -- an effect without a cause -- which is illogical. [Krimel]: > Just what the world needs another "creation hypothesis". > Maybe you could expand on what you mean by hypothesis. > In modern usage it usually means a formulation that is testable. You are an objectivist who speaks the language of Science. Metaphysics is not now, nor was it ever, "testable". It is precisely this "modern usage" of objective data that has blinded us to philosophical enlightenment. "Today's preoccupation with physical theories of everything takes a wrong turn from the purpose of science-to question all things relentlessly. Modern physics has become like Swift's kingdom of Laputa, flying absurdly on an island above the earth and indifferent to what is beneath. When science tries to resolve its conflicts by adding and subtracting dimensions to the universe like houses on a Monopoly board, we need to look at our dogmas and recognize that the cracks in the system are just the points that let the light shine more directly on the mystery of life." "Space and time are not stuff that can be brought back to the laboratory in a marmalade jar for analysis. In fact, space and time fall into the province of biology-of animal sense perception-not of physics. They are properties of the mind, of the language by which we human beings and animals represent things to ourselves. Physicists venture beyond the scope of their science-beyond the limits of material phenomena and law-when they try to assign physical, mathematical, or other qualities to space and time." -- [Robet Lanza: A New Theory of the Universe] [Krimel]: > The present era is a dangerous time precisely because > we are losing our ability to forget. That statement makes no sense to me. [Krimel]: > I think what is really at the heart of your thinking but > which you seldom mention is this: > > You do not want to die. > > You are really just constructing a logical façade that > lets you believe you will live forever, that some "essence" > of you will survive for eternity. > > You would rather invent your own language than accept > what is stated clearly in the Jewish scriptures: > > "Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, > and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, > all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit > under the sun." Another quotation from Ecclesiastes, demonstrating that the objectivist is at heart a nihilist. With such a mindset, philosophy will never broaden your perspective. Cheers (anyway), 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.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
