[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[Ham Priday]

Hi Scott (and Reinier, now that he's back again) --


Scott:
> Well, Wolff does not describe [Nirvana] 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.

If, as you say, Wolff believes that this "expansion of his proprietary
conscousness" equates with the absolute Source, I think he's mistaken.  Man
may "intellectualize", "fantasize", or "hypothesize" about Essence, but he
cannot 'Be' it -- even as an "out-of-body" experience.

> Which is to say, that in his first Fundamental Realization,
> he realized Nirvana, while in his second, he realized that
> Nirvana too was relative.
[snip]
> 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...

The absolute source, Essence, is immutable and can not be relative.
Consciousness (for me) is always relative.  Therefore, whatever Wolff
thought he was experiencing, it wasn't Essence.

> (By the way,  the thought of Eckhart and Cusa was based
> on their mystical experiences, so your excluding Wolff's
> seems arbitrary.)

I've read quite a bit on Eckhart, and realize that some consider him to be a
mystic; however, I've never seen any first-person statement to that effect
by either Eckhart or Cusa.  I think it's accurate to say that both
luminaries were gnostics, that is, they "rationalized" on their intuive
insight.  Since Cusa was a theoretician with mathematical skills, his logic
was more formalized than the teachings of his predecessor.  That both men
were influenced by Eastern mysticism is fairly evident in their concepts.

[snip]

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.

[I should have added here that Essence itself would be rendered imperfect if
it were divided between conscious awareness and its own absolute
Sensibility.]

> 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.

Well, Essence must work, if you accept the Primary Source; and experience is
an empirical reality.
Reinier disagrees, but (as I have just informed him) I don't see his 'law of
opposition' as a valid existential epistemology.  On the other hand, I do
see it as the operating mode of Essence.  It is also consistent with Cusa's
theory of actualization, as well as Hegel's negational ontology.  Of course
this can be only hypothesis, since (as I've stated previously), man is
denied access to absolute truth.

In short, it's my conviction against yours.

Regards,
Ham


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