[MD] Food for Thought

[Platt Holden]

Hi Ham, 

> As Avital says, "negation is what creates otherness."  I see this as
> primary to any creation cosmology.  Negation marks the differential mode
> of Essence. It would be incorrect to say "something" is now some thing,
> because Essence is not a thing.  Instead we can say Oneness takes on the
> appearance of the many, or that the Absolute actualizes finitude, or
> simply that Difference is created.

Here you explain a beginning --  a creation.

> What is outside of (or beyond) Essence is Nothing.  That's the whole
> point of this theory.  Existence is grounded in nothingness; it's the
> negated nothing that splits awareness from the whole and actualizes
> Difference.  We look at Essence from the perspective of nothingness and
> construct a reality of "other-beingness" for ourselves that we call
> existence.  From the perspective of Essence, however, there is no other
> because Essence has negated the nothingness that actualizes it.

Here you say we create beginnings by constructing a reality for 
ourselves.

> You (and Platt) are making the common mistake of describing existence as
> it is perceived, and assume (intellectually) that events must progress
> from a beginning to an end.  This [SOM?] notion comes from the fact that
> human experience gives us a "serialized" view of existence; we don't see
> it as a whole, but incrementally and fragmented.  Thus our knowledge is
> cumulative and never complete.  The difference between existence and
> Essence is that experience is process, difference, and relation, whereas
> Essence is constant, undivided, and absolute in itself.  Precepts like
> "before", "after", "beginning", and "all of a sudden" have meaning only
> in the context of existential experience.

Here you say our creation of  beginnings is mistaken. 

> Only created things "come from" something else -- namely, Essence, which
> is uncreated.  Man creates his reality, in a valuistic sense; but he
> does not create himself or the source of this reality.  Everything in
> existence is subject to change and process.  The source is immutable and
> does not change. Likewise, negation is constant; which is why I've said
> that Essence is "negational" in principle.

Here you say we create a reality which we mistake for  the "real 
thing," i.e., Essence. 

> Your first statement is on target: to know Essence is to posit something
> outside Essence.  That's precisely WHY we cannot experience Essence
> directly.  What we experience (I prefer to call it "sense") is the Value
> of Essence, divided up into the finite fragments we call "things". 
> Think of it as SQ extracted from DQ.  As Atival puts it, "no distinction
> is possible without negation, and negation and double negation therefore
> preceded all distinctions that followed. ...God was very bored amidst
> Perfect Symmetry, in which absolutely nothing happened.  Then
> accidentally He sighed, 'Oh No!' This created the first Asymmetry, which
> brought into being the other mindprints... and the rest is History." 
> History, of course, is the evolution of nature as observed by man.  But
> evolution is 'process' which, like all other transition, occurs only in
> the subject/object reality of experience.

Here you say we cannot experience the "real thing" -- Essence --
directly.

So if I understand you correctly, you believe there exists an Essence 
which we cannot experience or perceive and which has no beginning and 
no end. I would suggest that this is not a fact that can be argued but 
a matter of faith not unlike that which motivates religious beliefs.

By contrast, what has always appealed to me about the MOQ, with
Quality being its "essence" so to speak, is that I can experience and 
perceive quality every waking moment of my life. Quality is not 
something apart like the light outside Plato's cave or the Essence of 
your philosophy, but part and parcel of the world as we know it. 

That to me is a more satisfying metaphysics. Not only does it jibe with
everyday experience but it explains those rare moments when we 
experience transcendence, whether viewing a painting by Rembrandt, 
listening to a concerto by Mozart, or simply lost in the "flow" of 
motorcycle maintenance well done. That experience the MOQ calls 
"Dynamic quality."   

Of course our perceptions can be fooled and often are. But given the 
pervasiveness of Quality in our experience -- including your finding 
that your philosophy has much quality -- I place my bet on it being 
more descriptive of reality than a religious-like Essence whose 
existence can only be surmised.

But, I could be wrong.

A Happy and Healthy New Year to you and yours,

Platt