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

[Ham Priday]

Hello David --

As Major Bows used to say, "Round and round goes the wheel, and where it
stops, nobody knows."

[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.

Well, I haven't been able to access anything significant on-line from
Prigogine's books; but here is a brief exchange from an interview shortly
before his death in 2003.

[Interviewer]:
But if you say that matter is self-organising in principle, and if we agree
that matter is energy, then what is the principle that is organising energy?

[Prigogine]:
Well, I don't see exactly what you mean. Matter is energy, that is true, but
then what? If matter is self-organising, and therefore energy is also
self-organising.

[Interviewer]:
Yes - where does the energy come from that makes matter self-organising?

[Prigogine]:
Well, the energy is in our universe. And where do universes come from? I
don't know. Where are energies coming from? I don't know. But to come back
on your initial question about resonance: I don't see how Sheldrake's idea
of very long-range communication could be interpreted as similar to the
resonance of which I speak.

He also said: "The irreversibility of time is the mechanism that brings
order out of chaos."

I'm not impressed with these fragments.  Like most physicists, Prigogine is
stuck in the space/time world of physical reality which is the object of
their research.  A better source of significant metaphysical concepts are
the astro-physicists who explore the edge of reality.

[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.

Friends frequently cite books by a variety of authors, insisting that I'm
"not informed" or "not up to date" until I read what so-and-so has to say.
Frankly, I don't care what so-and-so says.
At this stage I'm not looking for new theories -- especially from the
positivist school.  You'll call this arrogance, of course, but what would
interest me most is a hypothesis that parallels my own, mainly to see how it
is expounded.  That's why I came to Pirsig's corner.


[Ham, previously]:
> 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.

How does that address my statement?  I didn't say metaphysics wasn't
considered important, but that the questions it raises are unavoidable.  My
meaning was that so long as we have questions that can't be answered,
they'll be around forever.

[Ham, previously]:
> -- 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'm presuming that you're serious, and that these are not rhetorical
questions.

By cause, I mean "genesis" or "origin of", as in Creation.
Depending on your perspective, Nothingness is either negated by the primary
source [Essence] or is the negational nature of Essence.
Nothingness is neither finite nor infinite.  It is the non-existent
antithesis of Essence.  (In poetic terms, you may consider it the "shadow"
of Essence.)

[DM]:
> I would say awareness is the difference between nothingness
> and finite being.

You might say that; but if awareness is the difference, it logically follows
that in the absence of awareness being = nothing.  I believe that's a
logical absurdity.  I make nothingness the difference, so that, in the
absence of nothingness, being=awareness.  However, such syllogisms are only
useful as relational analogies to enhance comprehension.  The only logic we
can infer about Essence is the Cusan principle that the absolute source
[Essence] is the not-other.  I go one step further by positing that
self-awareness (i.e., conscious sensibility) is the "not-" of "other".
Hence, the negation hypothesis.

I had previously asked:
> How does one make choices for the universe as a whole?

To which you replied:
> I assume the universe got along fine evolving prior to mankind.

Again, I don't follow your logic.  You said: "in finite circumstances there
are finite choices, but for the universe as a whole this does not apply."
If your meaning is that we can't make choices that affect the evolution of
the physical universe, I never implied that we could.  So, why did you bring
up that issue in the first place?

[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.

You've totally lost me.  How can we know the future now?  What futures don't
come into being?  This idea is sheer nonsense.

[Ham, previously]:
> I justify [killing in warfare and capital punishment]
> 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.

Well, David, I find the original maxim bland, too.  So where does that leave
us?

[Ham, previously]:
> 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.

That sounds like a hybrid of Buddhism and fatalism to me.  We can only act
on a possible choice.  While it is true that we don't always know what is
possible, choosing what is not possible isn't a "risk"; it's simply
nonsensical.

[Ham, previously]:
> Since we exist, we came from SOMETHING.
> That something may be "no thing" but it can't be nothing.

[DM]:
Any good reasons for holding that odd assertion?

Yes.  Plain old logic that we call common sense.

 [DM]:
> God is plausible only as a possibility not yet brought about.
>
> It's not original you know.

Gee, it really impresses me to know that somebody else could spout such
nonsense!

I say we've had enough of this.
And would you please come up with a new subject heading?  I'm really getting
tired of the false idols.

Peace,
Ham