[MD] Essentialism

[Ron Kulp]

Ham,
Thank you for clarifying that for me, you must get blue in the face
repeating yourself,
I've gone through the archives to get a better grasp of your theory, but
it seems I was 
Close, now I must re-read your paper concerning this, the first go at
it, I was confused by
The terminology and their relationships but I think I have it now.
Thanks again!

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Ham Priday
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2007 5:30 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Essentialism

Hi Ron --


> Ham,
> to simplify things for my tiny skull, I've used the Tao te ching as a 
>model metaphor  is this how essentialim works?
>
> The Tao(PRIMARY REALITY) begot one.(AWARENESS) One begot two.(DOUBLE 
> NEGATION) Two begot three.(QUALITY) And three begot the ten thousand 
> things.
   [snip]
> But Pirsig asserts that "value" pervades all reality and is therefore 
> Primary before reality(objective matter) itself, and arranges itself 
> accordingly, so that the tao reads as:
>
> The Tao(DQ) begot one.(SQ)
> One begot two.(AWARENESS)
> Two begot three.(S/O)(I NOT I)(DOUBLE NEGATION) And three begot the 
> ten thousand things.
   [snip]
> using this as a reference point, am I even close to understanding 
> Essentialism?
> thanks, I'm very interested in getting this right.

I don't disparage anyone's belief system or the canons that support it.
But for me these pretty verses are euphemisms that may serve as mood
music for the soul but offer little in the way of metaphysical clarity.
I'm a literalist trying to make sense of philosophy in plain, though
sometimes strained, English.  I've borrowed a few terms from mysticism
-- "Oneness", for example -- but, frankly, I don't even know if mystics
claim to have an ontology.

To get Essentialism "right", you start as the nihilist does by
contemplating Nothingness, and you realize two things rather quickly:
it's unimaginable, and it can't lead to anything.  At that point you can
either "give up" and say "all is vanity", or you can conclude, as I did,
that the ultimate source of all things is the antithesis of nothingness
-- absolute "IS-ness" -- the necessary primary source which I call
Essence.  That's the first step; but, unfortunately, it's too big a
hurdle for most people, even for the gifted author of the MoQ who
decided that metaphysics would destroy his poetry (still essentially
mystical) and -- even worse -- take us back to religion and
supernaturalism.

The rest of ontology is the ongoing process of figuring out how we get
from Oneness to diversity, and vice-versa.  After seven decades of
figuring, and with some insight borrowed from visionaries such as
Nicholas of Cusa, I've arrived at a hypothesis that satisfies me but,
obviously, hasn't yet led to a world-wide epiphany.  Here's a simple
paradigm, Ron; and I'll put it in Tao language:

The Tao (PRIMARY ONESS) begets Difference.
Difference begets two (AWARENESS and OTHERNESS} 6nm/    awarenessDOUBLE
NEGATION)
> Two begot three.(QUALITY)
> And three begot the ten thousand things.




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