[MD] Is Morality innate in the cosmos?

[Ham Priday]

Hey SA --


> From what you have said would this kind of
> input correspond:
> Essence denying itself negates or provides
> self-denial, and essence denying and/or negating
> nothingness thus denies awareness.  Therefore we are
> not aware of essence or are denied to know if we are
> aware of essence.  We may type about essence, give it
> a name, but will not fully be able to define essence
> only hint of its' existence.

I think you may be overcomplicating my ontology.

I equate "negation" with denial.  Are you familiar with the medieval monk
Eckhart?  I picked up this use of the term from his sermons.  Eckhart said:
"The divine One is a negation of negations.  Every creature contains a
negation: one denies that it is the other.  [Even] an angel denies that it
is any other creature; but God contains the denial of denials: He is the One
who denies of every other that he is anything except himself."

Cusa was also influenced by Eckhart's teachings, and his theory extends this
analogy into a logical premise.  If the first principle is the denial that
God or Essence is anything but itself, it means that this Essence is the
Not-other.  As the theologist (Eckhart) would put it: Only God can say that
everything is a not-other to Him.  That is to say, God is the essence of all
things --
hence, my term Essence.  Cusa theorized that this Essence was the
"coincidence" (unity) of all difference, that subject and object, positive
and negative, awareness and beingness are One in Essence.  (This was, in
fact, the title of my original unpublished manuscript.)

Recently, Prof. Clyde Miller of Stony Brook University formalized Cusan
logic as the proposition: "For any given non-divine X, X is not other than
X, and X is other than not X.  What is unique about the divine not other is
precisely that it is not other than either X or not X ('cannot be other
than'-'is not opposed to anything')."  Hence, the Not-other.

Now, as to your question whether we are denied knowledge of Essence, this is
another piece of the puzzle.  (You really should read my thesis.)  As with
all the pieces, this truth is also fundamental to Essentialism, but not
always for the reasons you might expect.  Man is here to realize the Value
of Essence conditionally, which also means "externally" -- as an outsider.
He does this by experiencing otherness as Being and realizing its value.

A thing cannot "be" until it is made aware.  By separating the subject of
awareness from its object, nothingness (negated Essence) affords the means
by which the self "refreshes" the Value of Essence.  Man is the "free agent"
of awareness.  In order that he may be unbiased in his realization of value,
man is denied access to essential truths like "What is morally right?" (re:
my current debate with Platt), "Does God exist?", "What is absolute truth?",
"Is there a hereafter?", or even "What am I?"  This is the "innocence" of
which Eckhart and the early mystics spoke.  But such innocence is essential
to the Master Design -- another reason for the term Essence.

Of course, you won't find any of this in Pirsig's MoQ.  His philosophy
equates the Master Design with Morality and the euphemism "some things are
better than others".  Other than that, it offers no meaning for existence,
no essential purpose for man.  This would be "Supernaturalism" which is
abhorent to the Pirsigians.  Well, fellas', if you insist on rejecting
ultimate reality as the supernatural source (which it is) you're throwing
the babe out with the bathwater.  You're also dismissing man's intrinsic
Freedom, which is the real morality of this grand design.

> How are we aware of essence, even the hint of essence,
> meanwhile we are not aware or awareness is negated, or
> denied?  Is it only denied because the denial is of
> essence in its' completeness not in its'
> differientiated mode of self-denial?  So to even think
> that essence could be complete is to assume that
> essence is a reality that is a complete reality?

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here, but the explanation I've
provided here may already have answered your question.  If not, post it
again with a bit more clarity.

Not to plug my on-line thesis (but thanking you for another opportunity to
do so), it's at  www.essentialism.net/mechanic.htm .  It should give you a
source for many more questions.

Essentially yours,
Ham