[MD] extricating MOQ from SOM

[PhaedrusWolff at carolina.rr.com]

Mind if I but in? :o)

Kinda an answer to what you asked Laramie;

HAM -- 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.) 

Chin -- Am I mistaken, or does Pirsig not see Quality in place of a 
supreme being? I’m not ready to make any statements in this nature 
other than it seems to me Quality works as well as God, Nothingness, 
The One, Atman, &c. The small self, big Self, Atman/atman, could fit 
into Contemplative Christianity as well as Quantum Physics, and it 
would seem to me Christianity evolves as understandings change, at 
least to some extent (there would not be a lot of proof of this at the 
current popular Christianity as I have seen). I think the main point 
in Quality might be the same as with Zen or even Contemplative 
Christianity, which Jacob Needleman makes a good point on this in “The 
American Soul.” Needleman’s understanding might also fit in here with 
the Conscious Cosmos. 

Ham -- 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? 

Chin -- In the belief of God, you wouldn’t necessarily need to divide 
it.  God is omni present, which would not consist of time and space as 
we would recognize it. Einstein advanced our understanding of ‘Space 
and time’. Maybe it just needs be advanced a bit further. 

Ham -- 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? 

Chin -- Was this not the problem with Quantum Physics? -- the 
difficulty between Einstein and Bohr? Didn’t Pirsig also point toward 
this in ZMM?

Eckhart might be a good one to point to here. Yes, there is no finite, 
as there is no way we could point to a beginning and/or end of the 
universe, so Nothingness fits in the way it is used in Zen, but God 
also fits in the actual descriptions of God in the bible as omni-
potent, omni-present, and omni-knowledgeable. Eckhart’s thoughts were 
evolvement, that may or may not be as any other enlightened 
individuals. The thoughts may not come down as words as we could 
understand them, so it is quite possible we can mistranslate our 
transcendence or intuition received from a higher source, whether it 
be God, Nothingness or Quality as the word we use to point to this 
higher source we reach when we enter the “High country of the mind.” 

I think this may be the reasoning behind L’s meditation, as it is for 
the monks and is for the nuns in prayer. You may not only need visit 
this “High country of the mind,“ but exist there. You strip away the 
layers of SQ, or what Einstein called “Predetermined prejudices,” and 
maybe it is possible we could get in touch with a higher source, which 
Nothingness will work as well as a Conscious Universe, or Quality as 
well as God. When Pirsig went into his transcendence, if you care to 
call it that, he had Quality on the brain going in, and Meister 
Eckhart had God on the brain. I imagine the monks have Nothingness on 
the brain as they go in, and Nothingness comes out with them when they 
translate their enlightenment. God, Nothingness and Quality are only 
words, but these words represent something outside the SQ, or our 
Predetermined prejudices, and belief in these SQ concepts may be what 
strips away the outer noise that inhibits our intuition which may come 
from a higher source 
-- possibly either of these, or possibly the Conscious Cosmos -- DQ 
maybe?  

Man would be the measure of all things as man is the universe in 
miniature, or Microscopic Man as Needleman points to in “A Sense of 
the Cosmos.” 

“ ‘Man is the measure of all things.’ Yes, that's what he is saying 
about Quality. Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective 
idealists would say. Nor is he the passive observer of all things, as 
the objective idealists and materialists would say. The Quality which 
creates the world emerges as a relationship between man and his 
experience. He is a participant in the creation of all things. “ ZMM

“And on the seventh day God rested.” -- kinda gives it new meaning, 
huh? 

Conscious universe, Conscious man, Conscious atom. Neither of us are 
any more than a mass of vast empty space. There is no scientific 
object when you bring everything down to Quantum Physics. We and 
everything around us are no more than probability patterns. 
Nothingness fits, however you define it. We re-grow or re-create our 
skin every day, and maybe Hawkings Radiation is the re-creation of the 
universe from the black holes -- no beginning, no end, just creation 
and recreation -- something from nothing as you say? 

I’m short on both time and intelligence, so I will most likely not be 
able to keep up with you guys, but I appreciate you allowing me a 
chance to offer a thought occasionally. 

Chin (short for a play on my last name Winchester -- Chinwhisker. 
There‘s already another Ron here)

----- Original Message -----
From: LARAMIE LOEWEN <jeffersonrank1 at msn.com>
Date: Saturday, November 11, 2006 7:07 pm
Subject: Re: [MD] extricating MOQ from SOM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org

> [H]:
> 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?  
> Perhapsthat would mean Nothing is the Creator.  Or, perhaps we 
> divide it by our own
> nothingness?
> 
> [L]:
> Interesting.  What is the difference you have in mind between 
> "Nothing" 
> and "nothingness", used in the last two sentences?
> 
> Cheers,
> Laramie
> 
> 
> 
> 
> moq_discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
>