[MD] Flying Spagetti Monsters

[Ham Priday]

Hi Laird --


> It's Scottish, isn't it?

 [Laird]:
> Yep! First name Scottish, last name an American bastardization of a
> French name (Bedard).  Neither the German or the Irish (Holden,
> actually!) make it to my namesake.

Interesting.  My last name is probably a bastardization also -- from the
French Huguenot "Prideaux".  First name is family.  (I'm distantly related
to Alexander Hamilton.)

> I just can't get rid of the feeling that something isn't
> right with physical reality (actualized, not rationalized)
> being created by intellect.

> 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.

What do you see wrong with anthropocentrism?  If the world is your reality,
then you are the locus of it.  You create its beingness in time and space
from the value you sense pre-intellectually.  The only question you have to
ask is: Why is the universe "universal"?  (In other words, why does everyone
observe the same universe?)  I think that can be answered by the fact that
our values all relate to a single Primary Source, the differentiation of
which is a cosmic (metaphysical) reality.

[Ham, previously]:
> Primary Reality is the fundamental or "substantive" source
> of existence which logically cannot be either "rational" or
> an intellectualization.

> [Laird]
> I think that's one thing I'm quite good at not confusing.
> When I said "intellectualization of existence (rational reality)",
> I was not speaking of Existence, I was speaking of
> intellectualization.

You'll be less confused if you call your "rational reality" Existence and
"primary reality" Quality, Essence, or the Source.

> I see Existence (capital E) as the whole of SQ, actualized
> by DQ (the Source). Constantly reactualized and updated
> and changing, thanks to non-physical DQ. This relationship
> of DQ actualizing SQ is the source of "time" as we know it.

Time/space is the dimensional mode of human experience.  It stems from the
presentation of reality in "the present" which is constantly changing,
leaving prior experience in "the past".  Likewise, the "extension" of things
in space gives us the perspective necessary to complete the appearance of
physical reality.  Everything in existence is relative and differentiated -- 
including the observing subject.  It's the primary characteristic of
actualized reality.

> With Existence characterized this way ("just the moon"),
> I see it as being VERY different from rational reality
> ("finger pointing at the moon"). I think this definition of
> Existence (capital) allows for our understanding of existence
> (rational) to more readily treat light, ideas and other not-quite-
> physicals as existents.  I think this brings physical-vs-
> nonphysical fields like neurology and psychology much,
> much closer to agreement.

The way you describe it, I think your rational reality IS your DQ reality.
You have not allowed for a non-existential source, and you end up with a
non-theological pantheism.  Think of it this way: the source [Essence] does
not "exist", it simply "IS".  What we experience as its actualization is its
division into finite phenomena by the nothingness of our intellectual
awareness.  This is akin to the biblical reference, "seeing through a glass,
darkly."  Our cognizance of reality is limited by finitude and delimited by
nothingness.  We live in a relational system designed so that we can realize
the value of its non-relational source.

> I'd agree that rational existence is only the experience
> (again, intellectual) of a differentiated physical reality.
> I don't view Existence (capital E) as primary because I think
> it's a bad description.  DQ, Essence, is "primary", but
> Existence is not secondary - without Existence, DQ would
> have nothing to work with and would ultimately degrade
> into true, pure, absolute nothing. A sort of strange
> codependent monism? Kind of an oxymoron, but I think
> that's just SOM talking.

Yes, it is SOM talking.  The Pirsigians think I'm an SOMist, but I'm really
not.  If anything, I'm a "subjectivist".  We are the subjects who create our
world of "objects" from our own subjectivity.  If Essence is Absolute
Sensibility, then proprietary awareness is differentiated (finite)
sensibility.  The appearance of Finitude begins with Difference.  I say
Difference is created by a "negational" Essence.  My hypothesis is that
Essence negates (denies) nothingness as a principle of its own perfection.
This creates a dichotomy (Awareness/Otherness) in which selfness and
beingness are the primary contingencies.  The negated Nothingness separates
each "being"  and each "self" from every other, thus causing the appearance
of existential reality.  But, because it's a negated Nothingness, it's
illusory and conditional, and it seeks to reclaim its primary unconditional
status.  That "seeking" is expressed in the values we sense.  Ultimately,
the estranged value of "otherness" is restored to its absolute identity in
Essence.

> I think our ideas are compatible. Existence (capital) just
> adds a bit that resolves my "feeling of something wrong"
> - my feeling that Existence can exist (I need a better word!)
> without rationalization ever occuring in the universe. I'm
> big on maintaining the possibility of the universe even
> if/when rational beings didn't exist. An anthropocentric
> viewpoint mandates an assumption that the universe must
> always contain something doing the rationalizing, and I
> just don't think that works.  Thus my need to bridge the gap!

If you understand time as the mode of finite experience, you will see that
temporal precepts like "always", "never", and "possible" are intellectual
constructs that are metaphysically meaningless.  That the universe existed
before mankind was aware of it is such a construct.  Awareness (finite,
proprietary sensibility) is an actualized reality, despite the fact that we
see it as an evolutionary development.  That's why I don't stress evolution
in my philosophy.  God either is or is not.  Sensible awareness either is or
is not.  Progression and sequence are finite illusions.  Reality, whether
viewed as experiential or metaphysical, is a 'fait accompli'.

Does that "bridge the gap"?

Regards,
Ham