[MD] The differentiating nothingness

[Ham Priday]

Hi Dan --

> It didn't hurt but suddenly I couldn't let go;
> my heart seized up tight in my chest like a giant
> black hand gripped it. As "I" watched, like a
> detached witness, all intellectual patterns began
> breaking down to reveal a dark underneath,
> a void, nothing, just in the corners at first,
> around the edges, then more insistent.
> No explanation suffices. Had I gone farther,
> well, we wouldn't be talking now. I only caught
> a glimpse but... there is nothing there when we die.
> Nothing. Not down deep. Still, what is there to fear?
> Nothing!

That's quite a story, Dan.  I take it electrocution is an experience one
should avoid if at all possible ;-).  I suppose that would qualify as a
near-death experience, although most of the reports I've heard about have
been of the "flat-liner" type that occurred during surgery in a hospital
environment.  I nearly drowned while snorkeling off the coast of Jamaica
(very unpleasant), and have had two fainting incidents (syncope) during
periods of ill health which were diagnosed as non-coronary induced.  In both
instances I blacked out quite suddenly and awakened gradually, accompanied
by the pleasant feeling of having a weight lifted from me.

> Now, speaking from experience, I cannot report any
> heightened sense awareness.
> [snip]
> I saw how it all falls apart. And when you see how it
> falls apart, you begin to see how it's put together.
> Perception I mean. The way we construct the world.
> How we are held in place. Suspended. On the brink
> of an abyss so vast there are no words.
 >
> Does that answer your question?

I have no doubt that you've described your experience accurately, but I
would question your conclusion: "there is nothing there when we die".  While
I don't know all the circumstances -- how long you were unconscious, or if
you required cardio-pulmonary resuscitation -- it would appear that you
passed out as a result of the acute trauma you were experiencing.  What you
describe as darkness growing from "around the edges" to full backness is
typically associated with the loss of blood flow to the brain that occurs
during severe trauma.  Unless you could recall something happening during
your state of unconsciousness, I would say that you had not "caught a
glimpse" of "out-of-body" awareness that would support your conclusion.

I said:
> The perception of finite things and events
> (differentiated beingness) results from our negation.
> Perceptions do not negate.  We negate (otherness)
> to perceive.

You said:
> I am equating perception with Dynamic Quality.
> It seems to me you are using "perception" in a
> different context than I am. I like the definition I find
> in THE OXFORD COMPANION TO PHILOSOPHY:
> "The extraction and use of information about one's
> environment (exteroception) and one's own body
> (proprioception)." Perceiving is not the things
> perceived, however, which is how you seem to use the term.

I don't know how to perceive Dynamic Quality.  I perceive sensory
"information about my environment (proprioception and exteroception)" and
intellectualize it as objects and happenings in space/time reality.  I
assume that you do, too.  Perception is "being-aware"
-- the processing of sensory information into objectivized images or
constructs.  Is this  using perception in a different context?

> I see intellectual patterns of value as the template and design.
> You seem to indicate that the "world" is really "out there"
> waiting to be discovered.  I should think the MOQ would say
> that is a high quality idea, nothing more.

No, I'm not suggesting that the world is "really out there."  Quite the
contrary, if you read my thesis you'll see that I have taken great pains to
dispel that common notion.  On the other hand, it is you and the MoQers who
insist that Quality is "out there" waiting to be discovered.  In reality
there is no "out there" or "in here".  It is the experience of Essence as
differentiated beingness that creates this illusion.  I'm saying that
nothingness is what does the differentiating, and that the self is part of
that nothingness.

> We are (all of us) submerged in culture. Culture tells us that
> grass is green and planets are round, animals are mobile and
> matter gaseous, liquid, and solid (not to mention the fourth state,
> plasma). So, I answered your question quite satisfactorily as
> far as Where and How... do you see?

I don't understand that concept at all.  "Culture" may tell me what word I
must use to communicate the "roundness" of a ball or the "greeness" of
grass.  But it doesn't tell me what I see, what I experience.  That's not a
satisfactory answer; it's that semiotics nonsense again, and again you evade
my question.  What I wanted to know was where the particular forms that we
all experience come from.  Culture doesn't create planets, mountains,
animals, trees, and snowstorms.  How do these specific things arise from
your Quality?

I also said:

> When MoQ people speak of Intellect as the cosmos
> moving toward higher forms of consciousness, which is
> quite frequent around here, one has to wonder whether
> it's a misinterpretation of Pirsig's philosophy or the
> interpretation that people like myself get. ...
> If humans were to disappear from the face of the earth,
> there would be no intellect.  If you don't accept that,
> you're putting Intellect into some celestial realm.

You replied:

> There are no MOQ people, or Essence people.
> There are only people. That aside, the MOQ does not
> say intellect is the cosmos moving towards higher
> forms of consciousness. In fact, the MOQ states that
> intellect often times obscures and gets in the way of
> higher consciousness. The MOQ states that
> the historic purpose of the intellect is to survive.

Survival is the biological law of nature.  It doesn't need MoQ support.

In response your your LILA quote I said:

> We may all know what Quality is; but most of us
> wouldn't think of it as a universal source.

Which made you exuberant.

> Exactly! You did get it! Oh but I am pleased!
>
> Ham, why do you think I picked that particular
> quote to share with you? Oh ho ho ho... You are
> really too much...

Well, ho ho ho, I still don't think of Quality as a source.

Anyway, thanks for trying,
Ham