[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[Scott Roberts]

David M,

DM said:
What I would like to say about anti-essentialism
is that it rejects all essentialisms, and therefore
ends up with a very simple and obvious ontology,
i.e. that it is all contingent, it may all have been different,
the universe is a free-form-verse. It may have repeat
lines in it for some reason, and there could be no science
without this SQ/repeats/order, but bar the repeats it is
all DQ, creative, disordered. Or equally it is all a matter
of agency, for me agency is what collapses the wave function
to reduce the possible to the actual, so that the under-determined
(the lack of precedent to repeat) can be actual and not just
suspended superpositions.

Scott:
My view is that without something like an essence, there couldn't be 
concepts or memory, and therefore no thinking. On the other hand, a concept 
is dependent on its expression, so one can't be an essentialist. In other 
words, I see anti-essentialism and essentialism as being two ways of falling 
off the Middle Way.

DM said:
Idealism vs materialism. Well there is stuff we sense without too
much cultural interpretation like colours or wetness or hardness
and can point at so we call these material, and there is stuff that
requires culture, like linking up a connection between ice, water
and steam, or making some paper special and calling it money,
so these are ideas, and they are both real, but there are important
differences and we need both to have any chance of saying something
as basic as that the world exists.

Scott:
As mentioned in the posts, the difference is in which evolutionary tale one 
tells. Did you catch the quote from Merrell-Wolff, about *all* objects being 
voids, having a strictly symbolic nature? That is idealism. Materialism is 
saying that there were rocks before there was consciousness. Big difference, 
it seems to me.

DM said:
Consciousness, well that just seems to be what you get by being
only a part of a greater whole so that the 'I' ain't everything and
can acknowledge that there is a vast Other than transcends
and is a source and target of change. Consciousness is the
experience and action of change. What else could it be?

Scott:
Read Wolff. It could be that which is unaffected by change.

DM said:
As for rocks, well they are big on repeats and inactivity, but if observed
over
millions of years probably come across as alot more dynamic.

Scott:
Or one cannot notice that their hardness, color, shape, etc. only exist when 
sensed.

DM said:
So guys, what's your problem? In what way do you think we currently
don't have a full understanding of reality, what are the key problems?

Scott:
Mystics tell us we have an appearance/Reality problem. I believe them.

- Scott