[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[David M]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Roberts" <jse885 at localnet.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 10:51 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism


> David M,
>
> DM said:
> What I would like to say about anti-essentialism
> is that it rejects all essentialisms, and therefore
> ends up with a very simple and obvious ontology,
> i.e. that it is all contingent, it may all have been different,
> the universe is a free-form-verse. It may have repeat
> lines in it for some reason, and there could be no science
> without this SQ/repeats/order, but bar the repeats it is
> all DQ, creative, disordered. Or equally it is all a matter
> of agency, for me agency is what collapses the wave function
> to reduce the possible to the actual, so that the under-determined
> (the lack of precedent to repeat) can be actual and not just
> suspended superpositions.
>
> Scott:
> My view is that without something like an essence, there couldn't be
> concepts or memory, and therefore no thinking. On the other hand, a 
> concept
> is dependent on its expression, so one can't be an essentialist. In other
> words, I see anti-essentialism and essentialism as being two ways of 
> falling
> off the Middle Way.
>
> DM said:
> Idealism vs materialism. Well there is stuff we sense without too
> much cultural interpretation like colours or wetness or hardness
> and can point at so we call these material, and there is stuff that
> requires culture, like linking up a connection between ice, water
> and steam, or making some paper special and calling it money,
> so these are ideas, and they are both real, but there are important
> differences and we need both to have any chance of saying something
> as basic as that the world exists.
>
> Scott:
> As mentioned in the posts, the difference is in which evolutionary tale 
> one
> tells. Did you catch the quote from Merrell-Wolff, about *all* objects 
> being
> voids, having a strictly symbolic nature? That is idealism. Materialism is
> saying that there were rocks before there was consciousness. Big 
> difference,
> it seems to me.
>
> DM said:
> Consciousness, well that just seems to be what you get by being
> only a part of a greater whole so that the 'I' ain't everything and
> can acknowledge that there is a vast Other than transcends
> and is a source and target of change. Consciousness is the
> experience and action of change. What else could it be?
>
> Scott:
> Read Wolff. It could be that which is unaffected by change.
>
> DM said:
> As for rocks, well they are big on repeats and inactivity, but if observed
> over
> millions of years probably come across as alot more dynamic.
>
> Scott:
> Or one cannot notice that their hardness, color, shape, etc. only exist 
> when
> sensed.
>
> DM said:
> So guys, what's your problem? In what way do you think we currently
> don't have a full understanding of reality, what are the key problems?
>
> Scott:
> Mystics tell us we have an appearance/Reality problem. I believe them.
>
> - Scott
>
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