[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[Scott Roberts]

Ham,

Ham said:
I appreciate your concern in getting Wolff's metaphysics exactly right, but
where to place Nirvana is not the issue.  The author was obviously
influenced by Eastern mysticism, and the attainment of Nirvana (usually
described as "a higher state of consciousness") is a goal of meditative
practice which IMO doesn't belong in metaphysics.  I'm not discounting
meditation as pyschologically beneficial; I just don't think a metaphysical
ontology can be built on subjective experience.  Incidentally, I feel the
same way about using theology as a ground for philosophy, in that case
because it is tied to religious dogma.

Scott:
Well, Wolff does not describe it as a "subjective experience", as he 
reserves the word 'experience' to experience of objects in relative 
consciousness, but that's a detail. But what you are saying is that 
revelation is irrelevant to metaphysics. I disagree. Since we are out of 
touch with ultimate reality (as in Plato's Cave) we need to listen to those 
who have gotten back in touch. As I said to Larz, I know intellectually that 
the eternal is real, but since I have no contact with it, I pay attention to 
those who say they have. That doesn't mean accepting what they say 
uncritically, of course.

His use of the word 'Nirvana' is actually somewhat different from its 
general usage, and is relevant. As he puts it in the aphorisms:

8. When consciousness of objects is born, then likewise, consciousness of 
absence of objects arises.
9. Consciousness of objects is the Universe.
10. Consciousness of absence of objects is Nirvana.
11. Within Consciousness-without-an-object lie both the Universe and 
Nirvana, yet to Consciousness-without-an-object these two are the same.

Which is to say, that in his first Fundamental Realization, he realized 
Nirvana, while in his second, he realized that Nirvana too was relative. 
This was a surprise to him, since there wasn't anythng in the mystical 
literature about this second Realization that he had seen at that time. He 
later found some reference to it in Eckhart and in Buddhism, however. (By 
the way,  the thought of Eckhart and Cusa was based on their mystical 
experiences, so your excluding Wolff's seems arbitrary.)

Ham said:
I find Wolff's conclusion most interesting; not that he finds his Nirvana in
"a recognition of Nothing", but that he identifies Nothing with the "SELF",
while at the same time defining it as "absolutely Substantial".  This, of
course, is the paradox I've attempted to resolve with Reinier and SA.  How
is it that the self of 'being-aware' is a Nothingness?  Obviously there is
nothing "substantial" about non-existent nothingness.

Scott:
When he capitalizes SELF, he is distinguishing this SELF from the self of 
relative consciousness. He also refers to the SELF as Pure Subject, which is 
to say, Nirvana: awareness of the absence of objects. So...

Ham continued:
The answer I've come to is that there is no awareness without an object,
that (as Heidegger suggested) actuality is a "becoming" in which the Self
acquires its estranged essence incrementally over a lifetime.

Scott:
.. Wolff says you're wrong. Ignore him at your peril :-)

Ham continued:
  But because
the negated Self can only experience its lost essence as the 'Being of
otherness', what it is really acquiring is the Value of that essence.  To
put it another way, actualization is the process of realizing the
potentiality (i.e., Value) of the Source from the space/time perspective
(locus) of a 'not-Source'.  I justify this concept on the ground that if the
Self were (an) essence, its own value would bias this realization, thus
rendering it imperfect by impairing the autonomy of man's free choice.

Does this make any sense to you?  If not, I won't pursue what promises to be
a source of contention between us.

Scott:
Not really. As I see it, the whole discussion between you and Reinier arises 
from your assumption that the Primary Source is undivided, so now one has to 
work out how division comes about. What makes more sense to me is to just 
acknowledge that we are dealing with (from our relative point of view) 
Absolute Mystery. We can contemplate aphoristic summaries (like the one 
above), but that's about it. Learned Ignorance, as Cusa says. The logic of 
contradictory identity is the same sort of thing. It doesn't explain the 
ineffable. Rather it displays the ineffability of the ineffable. In your 
paragraph above, you are using concepts (like 'essence' and 'experience') 
which in these ultimate affairs no longer work.

- Scott