[MD] extricating MOQ from SOM

[Ham Priday]

Hi Laramie --

I see you're still hanging in there!


[H]:
> Ultimate reality is either Absolute Essence or Absolute
> Nothingness.  And the value of philosophy hangs on
> your choice.

[L]:
> The value of philosophy hangs upon one's choice
> between two non-empirical concepts invented by Ham?
>
> Just want to make sure I've got this right.

Yes, Value really does hang on one's choices.  What you've got wrong is that
I am the "inventor" of these concepts.  The idea that reality reduces to
nothingness or infinity (absoluteness) dates back to the early Greek
philosophers.  You can't get much more fundamental than that.

You might have asked, couldn't reality be intermediate to these choices -- 
that is multiplistic?  But, then, you would be dealing with finite entities
again, which is relational beingness, which is not the ultimate reality.  So
it's absolute or nothing.  And if you can believe something can come from
nothing, I'll sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.

There is a third option, though, which I should have mentioned: Reality as
Being.  This is Existentialism which, I assume, is the cosmology behind your
position.  It was Eckhart's cosmology, inasmuch as he spoke of God as the
Supreme Being.  (And, just between us girls, I think it's also Pirsig's.)
I've always defined "being(s)" as that which appears to occupy time and
space.  But is Absolute Beingness even conceivable?   If so, how do we
divide it up into the finite pieces that constitute  existence?  Perhaps
that would mean Nothing is the Creator.  Or, perhaps we divide it by our own
nothingness?

I'll let you speculate on that one.

Thanks, Laramie, and enjoy the day.

-- Ham