[MD] Intuitive Reasoning?

[David M]

Hi Ham

To know that a thing is a thing surely you need
to know what nothing is, otherwise you can't
be sure that the thing is not a nothing. So knowing
what nothing is is something we all know, it's esssential
that we do!

Heidegger explains this in his 'what is metaphysics' essay,
I've chopped the argument down a bit.

David M


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ham Priday" <hampday1 at verizon.net>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 1:53 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] Intuitive Reasoning?


>
>
> Gav, Ian --
>
> Gav said:
>
>> At the most correct and fundamental level
>> there is no tree and there is no me, just experience.
>
> Ham:
>> Gav is right, up to the point of adding "just
>> experience".  There is no experience without both
>> the "me" and the "tree".
>
> Gav:
>> Yes there would be: experience of no-thing, awareness
>> of awareness itself, the goal of transcendental
>> meditation etc.
>
> Since "no-thing" is nothing, how can we experience it?  The only way we
> experience nothingness in a differentiated world is by the absence of
> things.  As I understand TM, the idea is to avoid the distraction of
> "things" so as to realize Oneness, not nothing.
>
> Gav, previously:
>> At the most correct and fundamental level there is
>> no tree and there is no me, just experience.
>
> Ham said:
>> We don't live at a fundamental level.
>
> Gav:
>> Yes we do. when we perceive quality dynamically;
>> momentarily, at least, fundamental reality is revealing itself.
>
> This is where you and I disagree.  For me the fundamental level is 
> ultimate
> reality, which is undivided.  Pirsig calls it DQ.  No differentiated 
> entity
> can participate in what is undivided; therefore, we can only conceive it
> abstractly, or perceive it indirectly as its value to us.  For man to
> "experience" Oneness directly, he would have to be this undivided Source
> [Essence].  Clearly, he is not.  In my philosophy, the self is a negation 
> of
> Essence -- literally a nothingness.
>
> Ham, previously:
>> Physical existence is not fundamental; we live
>> in a differentiated reality where each subject and
>> each object is divided from every other.
>
> Gav:
>> *We do this ham*; not 'reality'. we learn to do it and
>> we learn it long enough and well enough that it seems
>> that it was always that way. but .... when you are baby
>> you ain't dividing reality up into subjects and objects.
>> when you are a baby your experience is undivided.
>> you have to learn conditional subject/object reality.
>> conditional reality is socially constructed.
>
> The fetus lives in what might be termed a solipsistic environment.  But 
> the
> post-partum
> infant is already distinguishing faces, bodies, and other objects.  I 
> don't
> know when socialization sets in, but I would suspect this would occur much
> later.  I think Pirsig has made too much of the societal factors in human
> development.
>
> Gav:
>> don't know what you mean by 'collectivizing'. didn't
>> use that word myself. and i would never demean the
>> individual self....quite the opposite: wish there were
>> a lot more of them around. most folk are still
>> operating the 'ego' program which is a social
>> perspective. individuals operate according to reason
>> and DQ.
>
> Since I don't operate by DQ, and I certainly don't get my reasoning from 
> it,
> I suppose you consider me one of those "egoistic folk".  The reasoning I 
> do
> to form conclusions is my own.  The perspective I have of the world is
> proprietary to me, as are all of the values that I sense.  I may have
> learned from "social structuring", but I am not a collective entity.
> Neither is experience, intellect, or value.
>
> Gav asks (again):
>> Ham do you think we live in a deterministic universe?
>> Are you a mechanist?
>
> I am about as far from a mechanist as I am from motorcycles.  There is an
> order to the universe which you or I do not control.  To the finite mind,
> things arise, change, and disappear from existence.  Because the mode of
> experience is diminsional, we see things in transition as a series of 
> events
> in time and we assume a cause and effect for every event.  That 
> intellectual
> construct is determinism; however, it doesn't affect our freedom as
> individuals nor our uncreated Source.
>
> Ham, previously:
>> You see, Gav, your ontology makes Consciousness the
>> primary source, not Quality.
>
> Gav:
>> Two sides of the same coin ham. quality needs
>> awareness of it to be.
>
> If Quality does not exist without "awareness of it", Pirsig's MoQ is in 
> deep
> doo-doo.
> In my philosophy, Essence is not dependent on otherness of any kind.
> Essence is defined as the absolute 'not-other'.
>
> Ham, previously:
>> My explanation is that man's perennial struggle with
>> existence has an ultimate purpose --namely, to make being aware.
>
> Gav:
>> All being is aware. otherwise it wouldn't be.
>
> I would like to see your rationale for that assertion.
>
> Ham:
>> Human life is a "working out" of values by an autonomous
>> agent in pursuit of its own excellence.  We are each granted
>> the freedom to choose our own values.
>
> Gav asks:
>> Who is granting what here?
>
> We, you and I, are the created agents of the uncreated Source from which 
> all
> our values are derived.  This is the cosmogeny that Pirsig has failed to
> develop.  He's "overcome" duality, cause and effect, and individualism. 
> But
> he can't deny a reason or purpose for our existence, except to claim that 
> it
> was coincidental or an accident of nature.
>
> Gav, in exasperation, asks the perennial question:
>> Ham have you read pirsig's books?
>
> Yes.  But, as a free agent, I am not bound by external authority.  I 
> follow
> my own intuitive reasoning.
>
> Thanks for giving me another opportunity to clarify my statements.
>
> Cheers,
> Ham
>
>
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