[MD] Ham unlike you I will not create false idols

[David M]

> When someone opens a dialogue with the phrase "So you do not...", I know
> that he intends to throw back a misconstrued interpretation of a remark 
> that
> I've made.  In fact, I never said or insinuated anything like what you 
> have
> stated.
> By questioning the soundness of a physicist's unscientific speculation 
> about
> metaphysical reality, I am not impugning quantum theory.   Science has its
> place in the practical world of relational phenomena, and I am not
> discounting it.  But when a scientist speaks off the record as an armchair
> philosopher, I take his assertions with a grain of salt, as any
> discriminating person should.

DM:Yeah I really respect people who think they can dismiss the views of
a major thinker they have not read! You are looking like a true amateur.

> Metaphysical questions have always been unavoidable.

DM: Not been too near many of our modern universities recently then?
You will find many people taking metaphysics seriously as we both agree they 
should.

 This particular theory doesn't make them any more so.

DM:Why do you want to reply to me then?

 I do not "pretend" to have answers; I only
> offer an hypothesis for consideration in lieu of what is humanly
> unanswerable.  I make this quite clear in my thesis.

DM: You are right to be modest, you should therefore be
more interested in trying to explore, you do not seem to be.
Your immodesty slips through.

>
>> You find Nothing complex! How funny you are!
>
> That's a play on words, David.

DM: What other skill can we display? Unless you dream of logical certainty?
Are you such a dreamer? A poet turned logic-bully?

> -- Nothingness is the primary cause of existential reality.
> -- The individual self is essentially nothingness.
> -- Nothingness divides Essence into finite phenomena.
> -- Nothingness is the difference between awareness and beingness.
> -- Without nothingness there is no being, hence no existence.

DM: What do you mean by cause? How does it divide? If
it is making phenomena finite is it impied that Nothingness is infinite?
I would say awareness is the difference between nothingness and
finite being. Last line is fine.

> [DM]:
>> Well yes in finite circumstances there are finite choices, but for
>> the universe as a whole this does not apply. The whole point though
>> is that we do experience the possible, it is the future, without it there
>> are no choices, and it has value, how else would we be able to make
>> choices without values? Although we can choose to ignore value, how
>> else do you explain evil? We can certainly bring some hell to earth if we
>> so choose.
>
> How does one make choices for the universe as a whole?  I don't follow you
> here.

DM: I assume the universe got along fine evolving prior to mankind.

You're begging the question when you say we experience the future.
> It is the "present" when we experience it.  Certainly the values we choose
> now affect what will happen in the future; did I say they wouldn't?

DM: Obviously the only future/s we can know has to be known now,
but as some futures come into finite being and some do not the distinction
between future-potential and present-finite-being is pretty easy to grasp.

> I don't attempt to explain evil in moralistic terms because I consider
> morality a human institution established to deal with the contingencies of 
> a
> relativistic world.  However, since I believe value to be the essence of
> man, I maintain that the use of force or coercion to deny man his freedom 
> is
> evil insofar as it violates the principle.  And, yes, this applies to
> killing in warfare as well as execution by capital punishment.  I justify
> these actions by virtue of what you might accept as a corollary of 
> Pirsig's
> morality maxim: Some things are more evil than others.
>

DM: I find that bland. Try George Steiner's Errata for some challenge
to your single vision about freedom.

> [DM]:
>> The great makes great choices, the dumb make dumb ones.
>> If the great make great choices they must have avoided the dumb ones
>> that exist but which they do not wish to actualise. This is DQ at work.
>> Either way you seem to think that there is a choice, so there must be
>> real possibilities to choose from. Sorry if this is a big gap in your
>> philosophy to date, but congratulations your choices have just expanded
>> if you are honest about it. But go on you can admit you were wrong
>> like a man.
>

> Every choice is a possibility, since only a fool would choose what is
> impossible.

DM: I think the crux of choice is whether you can get into a position
where you can actually get to bring your desired possibility into 
space-time.
If it is out of reach you are only making yourself suffer with unobtainable 
desire.
But sometimes you have to take that risk.

I don't know what "DQ at work" means in this context, but I
> presume it has to do with values.  I submit that when we make a choice we
> are making a value judgment.  It is the value of what we choose that 
> compels
> us to act on that choice.  If this is DQ at work, we're in agreement.

DM: Good.


> Why not?  It's as grown up as anything you've said to me.

DM: Well I have failed, I try to be as kind as possible without
letting you get away with your naughty slothful reasoning.

> Your reasoning is bass ackwards.  Since we exist, we came from SOMETHING.
> That something may be a "no-thing" but it can't be nothing.

DM: Any good reasons for holding that odd assertion? Again George Steiner's 
Grammars
of Creation is good on genuine creativity rather than just re-arranging 
things.

> [Ham, previously]:
>> I don't need an incomprehensible heirachy of quality or
>> possibility for my ontology.
>
> [DM]:
>> Then it is a flat and dead and unopen philosophy where
>> nothing new appears under the sun.
>
> That depends on your perspective.  Yours is a rather shallow one.

DM: Nothing has greater depths, you try getting to the bottom of it!

> [DM]:
>> God is plausible only as a possibility not yet brought about.


> Not yet brought about?  Now there's a curious concept!

DM: It's not original you know.

Is "DQ at work"
> creating the possibility of God?

DM: The possibility exists, the actuality though?

> You're a barrel of fun, David, but it's time for bed now.

DM: I have enjoyed it too. Sleep well in the infinite abyss.