[MD] Probability

[Ham Priday]

Thanks, Platt --

I've recopied the aldaily.com address in my Favorites file, and am back in
business.  I'll also review the Poe reference, and might even decide to
include that quotation in a future Values Page essay.

> At my request you tried to simplify your negation hypothesis
> for me before, but through no fault of your own, failed to
> penetrate my thick skull. You're  welcome to try again, if not
> for me then for others.  Perhaps the barrier for me is the
> suggestion of a double negative, a no-no of traumatic
> proportion beaten into me as a child by a harridan of
> an English teacher.

I'd forgotten my about previous attempt to explain negation to you, although
it met with considerable resistance from Reinier.  I can appreciate that
double negations are not permissible in English, but they are valid
expressions in mathematics and logic.

Perhaps if I explain the thinking that led me to this concept, you may see
why I felt it necessary without having to accept or reject it out of hand.

I have always held the view that the primary source is Absolute and
undivided.  Clearly, experiential existence is relational and
differentiated.  The challenge was to
understand how "the many" can arise from "the One".  By the rule of Occam's
razor, I reduced the complexity of existence to a single factor -- 
Difference.  And since Essence is by definition perfect "is-ness", it cannot
be divided, cannot contain difference.

I also realized that if the absolute source was to create something -- an
"other" -- it would have to be an "exclusion" of itself, rather than a new
entity.  That is, since there can be no "addition" to what is already
infinite, Essence must relinquish, deny, or negate part of itself in order
to create.  And, since it is fairly well established in the annals of
philosophy that we cannot describe God (Essence) in terms of properties or
attributes, I had no idea what could be excluded from it without impairing
its "absoluteness".

Then I stumbled upon this obscure 15th century logician, Nicholas of Cusa,
who had theorized the principle of the "not-other".  He argued that,
although God is indefinable, it can be stated that the world is not God but
is not anything OTHER than God.  He also talked about existence as the
"actualization" of "absolute potentiality" in which there is no contrariety.
At about the same time, Reiner and some others were posting the idea that
any premise has both positive and negative values.  It was Reiner who said,
"You need to be able to be aware of 'not the object' to be aware of 'the
object'...Something that has no unity must have duality.  An experience of
'A' will always be accompagnied by the experience of a possible 'not A'.
You may call it multiplicity, but that can always be simplified to duality
(A or not A).  If in a universe there's an 'A', but nowhere in that universe
at no time there's a 'not A' then people will not be able to experience A.
So our experiencable universe is made up of A's that all have 'not-A's,
therefore I say it's duality."

I had my doubts about Reinier's assertions, but someone else supported him
by explaining that a polygon may be conceived as having two contradictory
forms-the one defined by the space contained within the lines, and the other
formed by the space outside the lines. (After seeing the light, I've since
created an animated triangle in my thesis to illustrate this principle.)

I concluded that if "actualized existence" is polarized in this fashion, and
"absolute potentiality" is non-contradictory, the difference between them is
the nothingness that divides existence.  Essence (by definition) does not
possess nothingness, yet has the potential to actualize it as its
antithetical manifestation (the other side of the coin, so to speak).  From
man's perspective, anyway, Essence is "negational".  By denying that it is
nothingness, Essence constantly negates it.  This results in an apparent
dichotomy in which awareness and otherness are contingencies differentiated
by nothingness.  But since nothingness is not essential --- denied by
Essence -- it is a Not-other to Essence.  Nothing is lost in this ontology,
there is no diminution of the absolute source, and the provisional
separation of awareness from Essence enables man to be a free agent in
existence.

Later, I'll explain my theory of how the intellect constructs its
being-in-the-world by a negation of its own -- the problematic "secondary"
(double) negation.  I thought the above background might be helpful in
following my path to a conclusion.  But this is enough to chew on for one
sitting.

Thanks, again, for the references, and for allowing me to ramble.

Regards,
Ham