David M said:
...The present is transcended by the future. DQ surprises, it is
unpredictable, it is not the same again, it transcends what has gone before.
I cannot see any other meaning for transcendent than this one, of course it
appears in experience-reality, otherwise it would be some sort of
other-world sphere that we had no contact with, another-world-in-itself. The
concept of transcendence is the other side of the reality of openness. Our
reality is open, new form continuously emerges, as if from nothing. This
Nothing is the source of everything, therefore, to look at it another way,
this Nothing has the potential of everything, everything that is possible.
The Nothing is a fullness, the sphere of the possible, of all that is
possible. Only a fraction of which will ever become actual.
dmb says:
First of all, you have been using the words "transcended" and "transcendent"
in a very confusing way. (especially considering the quasi-theological
notions you've imported along with their use) The dictionary on my computer
includes five definitions for the word "transcendent" and all but one
defines it as beyond experience or beyond reality as we know it. Since you
say "of course it appears in experience-reality" you must be using the word
in its most general sense. So then you're only saying the future goes beyond
the past. Expectations are surpassed by surprize. These sorts of statements
are true, but they're also extremely trivial. Here are the five to help you
see the central meaning...
1. beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience:
2. surpssing the ordinary; exceptional:
3. (of God) existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the
material universe.
4. (in scholastic philosophy) higher than or not included in any of
Aristotle's ten categories.
5. (in Kantian philosophy) not realizable in experience.
I suppose number 2 would be the closest to your use but I'd argue that the
future per se is pretty darn ordinary and one can only hope that it'll be
surprizing or exceptional. The notion of transcendence as openness is odd
for two major reasons. The first is that is simply not what the word means.
Transcendent can be opposed to immanent and opposed to the ordinary but
since when is it opposed to "closedness"? And its odd because the MOQ's
first division is between static and dynamic and this language is so much
clearer and well known to everyone here. If that's what you're getting at,
why not say so? I mean, nobody here is making a case for a closed or static
system and I don't know of any thinkers who do.
And all of that is simply an attempt to show some of the reasons why a
person might be confused by your comments. I'd also complain about the
notion that its useful to talk about the potentials and possibilities of
everything. How can we even begin to know that? Aren't the possibilites
really defined by one's range of vision? Doesn't it make more sense to think
of options and choices on a more human level than to think of possibilites
as some kind of embryonic reality waiting to be born? Yes, new forms emerge
in the process of evolution but what reason do we have to think that these
forms already existed in some other realm? The idea that possibilities are
somehow out there waiting to become actual... Well, I think that's very,
very goofy. I can see why Whitehead would be popular among theologians and
the like but I'm skeptical. I'm interested in reading Sneddon's work simply
because it relates to the MOQ, but based on the extract you dished up I'm
skeptical about that too.
DM asked dmb:
Do we experience the world Dave? No, we experience rooms, a bit of sky, a
bit of sea, some ground. There is no world here. The world is a fiction we
add to experience to make sense of it. The world as a whole is something
beyond what we can experience (even space men cannot experience the front
and back at the same time). ...
dmb says:
Oh, come on. Do you really suppose that I meant to say "planet" when I said
the "world"? No, Dave. I think its safe to say that reality extends beyond
our little rock. And if I advocate a global perspective I'm not saying that
we can view the earth from space. Dreams, plans for the future and the even
the farthest stars are part of our world. (Presently my world centers around
a new iPod, with which I am deeply in love.) This is an epistemological
issue. It is not astronomical claim, and one would have to be a real space
case to take it that way (Rocket man, going around in circles.)
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