[MD] Ham on Esthesia

[Squonkonguitar at aol.com]

1. following...
 
> Anything less than [mystical] is metaphysical, and even then
>  logic can't cope with them.  If  you insist you are saying
>  something then you are pushing back to a further stage which
> would have  to be 'potentialism' or something like that.

Ham: Why is the  "metaphysical" less than the "mystical"?   It's just  another
approach to understanding reality.

Mark: I take your point.  
But it has been argued that metaphysics deals with definitions while  mystics 
like to avoid them.
In this sense, the monist Quality of ZMM is mystical and left alone.
But the DQ of the Metaphysics of Quality is part of a system. In this case,  
it's a bit like having the cake and eating it.
One may wish to see these two as complimentary?
My problem with potential is this: You can stuff all that is inconvenient  
and problematic into the category of the potential.
One version of could say: 'This electron is doing what it is doing now,  
because the initial potential teleological activated the Universe so that it  
would be doing what it is doing now.' When you consider the electron in question  
may be in the brain of Stephen Hawking it appears Stephen Hawking right down 
to  the atomic level was potentially 'there' before the Big Bang or whatever.
Which level of determinism do you subscribe to Ham?
 
> I'm saying the conceptual is defined, pure sensation, or
>  awareness is experienced as undefined.  God is fathomed
> very well  in most religions by the way Ham. Faith is largely
> a matter of clinging  to a set of sq patterns, not DQ.

Ham: I don't know anyone who can explain  the nature and dynamics of God.
We take it "on faith" not reason.  We  accept the fact that understanding the
Creator is beyond human  reasoning.  I am trying to posit a Primary Source
insofar as it can be  based on logic, reason and intuition.  I try to support
it any way I  can.
 
Mark: OK. Let's stay with philosophy.
You have posited a primary source.
The primary source is an essence with potential.
Does this mean that the activating of the potential follows a deterministic  
teleological path?

Ham said:
> There is nothing wrong with this  logic, provided that it
> refers to absolute  potentiality.

Mark:
> Fine. Then what you have is absolute  potentiality as a monism.
> And like your essence/nothing position, the  absolute potential
> is the same as saying absolute non-actualised. They  are logically
> the same. But if all is potential there can be no  actual.

Right.  Obviously some potentiality of Essence accounts for  the
actualization we call existence.  I maintain that it is the  actualization of
Difference, which amounts to God saying, "I deny."   This is a negation -- 
the negative potential of Essence.  What does  Essence negate?  Let's say, it
negates "otherness".  Then, for  Essence, there is no "other".  God is the
not-other.  And -- presto  -- we have Difference.
 
Mark: Right? You say, 'Right' and then immediately continue to tell me we  
have negative potential as well as absolute potential.
That's not a monism is it?
Absolute potential plus negative potential means dualism.
How many more potentialities does essence contain Ham?
Does it contain as many as there are?
If so, you've walked straight into deterministic teleology central.
Difference is like sand falling through an hour glass - potential becomes  
actual.
But any actuality may claim to have been potential all along, so  if i steal 
a car it was always potential that i should actually steal the  car.
 

Mark:
> But essence is a postulation and is therefore  finite.
> How can the finite define the infinite?  It  can't.

Ham: The finite doesn't have to define the infinite.  The  infinite defines 
(i.e.,
dilineates or differentiates) finitude, and it  becomes our existence.
 
Mark: You've just stated that essence is infinite.
Our postulations about it are finite but essence is infinite.
This means we now have essence = infinite absolute potential which  has 
negative potential.
You only have to tell me essence is also perfect for me to begin to suspect  
you are a Theologian Ham.
You've already suggested God exerts his Will, unless this was an  analogy?
Back to infinity.
Infinity isn't without a whole range of philosophical probing, so the more  
terms you associate with essence the more convoluted things become.
This is not turning out to be simple.


Mark:
> A primary cause presumably pushes creation  whereas
> migration may be seen as a dragging up or pulling.
> This  is Asymmetrical.  A cause generates that which follows
> as the  potential is actualised.  But migration does not imply
> a first  causal potentiality does it?  Migration, and this is very
>  Plotinian, is a coalescing of differentiation's reaching toward
> an  undefined end.  Perhaps the beginning was pure chaos
> in the  MoQ?

Ham: Essence, like God, has no beginning or end.  It is  uncreated and 
timeless.
Yes, this is an "assumption", a "given" that I can't  prove.  If you reject
the idea of a primary source I've lost you at the  git-go.
 
Mark: Like God?
Essence, as you delineate it is looking more like God by the sentence Ham,  
which i have to say worries me.
It worries me because we are drifting into the Theological tradition  and 
that gets pretty heavy.
But i may be worrying unnecessarily.
I'm not averse to contemplating the ins and outs of what may constitute a  
primary source, so i will stick with you as a fellow thinker.
As i hope to have convinced you Ham, i find your thought fascinating and  
stimulating and bloody irritating all at the same time!
But that's part of the fun.
I applaud you for being enough of a free thinker to state openly that  employ 
axioms which may not be amenable to proof.
 
2. more to follow...