[MD] Flying Spagetti Monsters

[Ham Priday]

Greetings Laird, Hi Micah  --

Laird is an unusual name.  It's Scottish, isn't it?

I saw your post to Micah today, and was impressed with the honesty and
clarity of your thought.  You said:

> I've tried for quite some time to wrap my head around
> various philosophical ideas of reality not-existing without
> man, and I don't know what it is, but I just can't dig it.
> I see man as a thoroughly cool happenstance in cosmo-
> history, but not much more. Swell, we can intellectualize
> and carve up ideas! We're probably not the first, last,
> or only creatures capable of this. On the grand scale,
> I think humans are exceptionally un-special.

I think Micah was a bit brash in saying "I cannot know for you, and I see
that you just don't understand."  On the contrary, you seem to understand
very well, but bolt at the idea that physical reality is literally created
by the intellect.  I must admit to having the same reaction, until I
realized that no other cosmological scheme makes sense in a philosophy that
is based on a non-physical principle.  And Quality in the MoQ is
non-physical.

> I see philosophy as a means to understand the reality
> we're partaking in, including the past before we humans
> came into being. The statement "reality cannot exist
> without man, and man cannot exist without reality"
> translates in my head to anthropocentrism, which I see
> consistently leading to relativism. I want to think there's
> another way of looking at this! Do you see it another way?

Yes, there is another way of looking at this (which I'll get to in a
minute); but first I need to point out something you've missed in your
reprisal of Micah's ontology.

> It sounds like you're saying that nothing rationally exists
> until it is differentiated by a human. That a rose is not a rose
> until a human calls it a rose... Sure, the _word_ "rose" or
> brain-construct of "rose" may not exist, but that doesn't stop
> the reality-rose from just _being_ and doing its whole jive with
> reality. It sounds like you're all wound up around the
> intellectualization of existence (rational reality) rather than
> existence (primary reality) itself.  I agree with you on the
> rational reality front, but I think you're mixing up rationalized
> reality with primary reality at points, choking any clarity out
> of the conversation.

At least part of your confusion, as I see it (Micah may not agree with me),
is a consequence of viewing Existence as both "rational reality" and
"primary reality".  You correctly characterize the former as an
"intellectualization".  But Primary Reality is the fundamental or
"substantive" source of existence which logically cannot be either
"rational" or an intellectualization.

What is Primary Reality, then?  Pirsig says "Quality is the primary
empirical reality of the world"; but existence is only the experience of a
differentiated physical reality, not its substantive source.  What we
experience is the intellectualized "appearance" of beingness -- things and
events in flux.  Existence cannot be primary, and neither can the intellect
which constructs it.  Both presuppose a primordial "first cause" which
Pirsig doesn't include in his cosmology.

It is my theory that the ultimate Reality is uncreated, immutable and
undivided.  I define it as the absolute Not-Other (Cusa's term), and I call
it Essence.  All finite otherness exists relative to Essence, but nothing
that exists is an "other" to Essence.

Now let's return to your comment that "the statement 'reality cannot exist
without man, and man cannot exist without reality' translates ...to
anthropocentrism, which I see consistently leading to relativism."  Physical
reality can be [is] anthropocentric, which indeed does make for a totally
relativistic existence.  However, if you consider Primary Reality not as an
"existent" but as the Absolute Source [Essence], you will no longer have to
struggle so hard to "dig it".  You may even come to see relativity as what
makes individual freedom possible in an anthropcentric universe.

I hope I've "shown you another way" and not just added to your confusion.

Thanks for the opportunity, Laird, and a hearty welcome to the forum!

Essentially yours,
Ham