[MD] Essentials for target practice

[Ham Priday]

 On Sunday, 6/27 at 8:31 PM, Craig wrote:


> [Ham}
>> FUNDAMENTAL TENETS OF ESSENTIALISM:
>> 1) Nothing comes from nothingness.
>> 2) Nothing creates itself (i.e., brings itself into existence)
>> 3) Existence is the appearance of differentiated otherness.
>> 4) All appearance--including divisions, relations, and movement--
>> is the affect of an uncreated source.
>> 5) The primary difference is the provisional separation of
>> proprietary sensibility from the undivided source.
>> 6) Life is an individual experience the essence of which is
>> value-sensibility.
>> 7) Cognizant awareness, feeling, knowledge, interpretation,
> intellection, and realization are proprietary to the individual.
>> 8) Experience is the objective representation of value realized.
>> 9) Unrealized value does not exist.
>> 10) Man is a "free agent" in that he has the innate capacity
>> to act in accordance with his proprietary value orientation.
>> 11) All truth is relative. Access to "absolute truth" is inimical to
>> individual freedom.
>> 12) Wisdom is not factual knowledge but the ability to realize
>> the value of experience.
> .
> 1) & 3) make no sense to me.
> 2) is an unknowable generalization. For any particular,
> one of 3 cases hold: i) we find its source;
> ii) we can't find a source & it doesn't have one;
> iii) we can't find a source but it has one. We can't determine
> which of the latter two is the case.
>
> I see no reason to believe 4), 5) or 11).
> 8) is vague, as is "innate capacity" in 10).
> It's not clear that factual knowledge is not also "the ability
> to realize the value of experience" in 12).

>From your comments I take it you believe that things either come from 
nothing or create themselves; that there is no primary source; that 
sensibility is not distinguished from objective reality; that  absolute 
truth is humanly accessible; and that the value of existence may be realized 
through factual knowledge.  You did not understand what I meant by existence 
as "the appearance of differentiated otherness", and argue that we must 
"find a source" (I assume empirically) in order to posit one.

Although you had no criticism of tenet #6 (Life is an individual experience 
the essence of which is value-sensibility), you apparently don't believe 
that experience is derived from (or a construct of) value.  I find that 
curious, inasmuch as Pirsig equated Value (Quality) with Experience, and 
particular experiences are frequently referred to here as POVs.

Had I not known you to be an MoQist, I doubt that I could discern it from 
the comments you provided.

Thanks, Craig.

--Ham