[MD] Essentialism and the MOQ

[LARAMIE LOEWEN]

[Ham]
Here are my comments.  To keep to the theistic framework of this essay, I'll
(reluctantly) use the term 'God' instead of 'Essence' .

I see three fundamental premises in question here:
1) that God can be '"immutable" as a Creator,
2) that God could "exist" without creation, and
3) that God is "perfect knowing"

The suggestion that God is mutable arises from the human perspective of
Creation as evolutionary, thus presupposing "change".  I can resolve that
issue in one sentence: If God is absolute, it encompasses all of Creation in
time as a 'fait accompli'.

[Laramie]
The human perspective is the only perspective there is.  It doesn't make sense to 
propose a nonhuman perspective.

[Ham]
The question as to whether Creation is a "necessary" contingency for God is
also meaningless, because Creation (i.e., existence) is an empirical fact,
hence is included in the timeless absolute.  The fact that existence itself
is an "actualized" contingency does not make God contingent (dependent) upon
it.

[Laramie]
The world is not an empirical fact without awareness of it.  In order for awareness, there  
has to be something to be aware of.  Think about it.

[Ham]
Finally, "perfect knowing" is absolute sensibility which is undivided and
not subject to the conditions of finitude.  Knowing is the incremental,
finite differentiation of Absolute Oneness performed by man's intellect.
Sensibility is indistinguishable from "knowledge" in the identity of God.

[Laramie]
Static, static, stuff, Ham.  But I could be wrong.  

In the "Guidebook to ZAMM" there is mention that it might be worthwhile to compare Hartshorne 
and Whitehead's "God" to Pirisig's Quality, and I've been researching for a thesis on Aurobindo and 
Rand for quite a while, so I was happy to find the monograph.  Glad you liked it too!