[MD] Kant's Motorcycle

[Ham Priday]

Case --


> If we can not have TITs why can we have Essence?
> I would prefer TITs any day but why would Essence
> be preferable.  How can you say whatever it is
> "absolute" if you can't say anything about it?
> Why can't it be broken into parts. Who made this rule?

The phrase "thing-in-itelf" has its roots in the Greek philosophers who
figured that existence was the ultimate reality, and that everything in it
had its own essence.  They couldn't experience this essence, so they
surmised that the "thing" we observe is our "idea" of it.  The 'TIT' concept
is anathema to the MoQ as it is to Essentialism.  It denies the ultimate
reality, Quality or Essence, and flies in the face of Pirsig's epistemology
that experience defines our finite reality.  What is absolute and immutable
cannot be differentiated.  The intellect constructs the "patterns" of what
we experience from the Value (Quality?) of the undivided primary source.

> We attempt to construct models of TITs and discover
> the rules or conditions that result in the objects of perception
> behaving as they do. As we refine our powers of observation
> and our understanding of the rules we gain successive
> approximations of what TITs are "really" like. While our
> internal models may not be exact they do not need to be.

This assumes that the essence of reality is the quantum particle/waves,
vibrations, string fields, or whatever may be theorized by scientists to
explain the objective world.  All it does is extend the empirical knowledge
of relational entities ad infinitum.  Reality is not objective.  Even Pirsig
agrees with that.  You can't eliminate the subjective factor from the
dichotomy and call it reality.  Subject and object are the necessary
contingencies for experiential reality.

> This is just Hamish jibber jabber.  Awareness is a property
> of a biological system. Much of the universe has no biological
> systems in it and does not classify anything. A metaphysical
> foundation that requires a biological system is no metaphysical
> foundation at all.

I cannot argue with that.  My metaphysical foundation does not require a
biological system.  But the biological system requires a metaphysical
source.  You are a being aware.  That means you have an organic body and
conscious awareness of what you experience.  In other words, you are a
creation of the subject/object dichotomy.

> You want to define the indefinable as though reality has to
> play by your rules. Our task as beings is to figure out the rules,
> to find relationships that exist and attempt to understand them.
> You want to just make them up out of thin air or Nothingness.
> Absolute?  Get serious!

There is no end to the relationships you can find, but searching them out
will get you no closer to ultimate reality than "Pi specified to 50 billion
digits."
Is this your idea of metaphysical understanding?  Get serious!!

-- Ham