[MD] What all is about.

[Peter Corteen]

Ham hi,

I don't think it's possible to understand the ultimate fabric of nature;
this, if I'm not mistaken, is your 'Essence'.
I don't think 'they' will ever complete a grand unified theory or model of
nature; they'll get closer and closer but never succeed completely.

That being the case though, I would still think Essence is natural -
absolutely natural; rather than supra or super natural - even though
unbounded by time, space and form, as you say. Hawking says time did not
exist before big bang - I think from a practical point of view he may well
be right - he's very brainy after all and I'm just an unexceptional guy;
but, to accommodate that idea of time I have to consider the big bang
(perhaps that should be capitalised too) a transitional point which we
cannot see beyond.

When I was a child I did believe in God, then a brainy guy at grammar school
told me that God was scientifically unsound and I lapsed into agnosticism.
Years later, when I got married and had a child I found myself begging God
for some particular thing or other to happen
in return for which I would behave in future in such and such a way. Now I
have given up such wishful thinking and am atheist; it sounds trivial but
confirmation of my atheism came when I realised my fear of the dark had
gone.

Your story of the gods sounds very plausible and I think Julian Jaynes says
similar things. I agree that we will never account for the beginning of
nature (as above); the beginning of being existence though (I think they
call it abiogenisis) I believe will be cracked, and the meaning of life is
the responsibility of the individual.

I am your 'objective' man, even though I realise value is the pre and post
intellectual source of my knowledge. I don't have to invent my values -
Pirsig's hot stove. You are right that for me meaning is ultimately grounded
in physical reality but after all the sorting and sifting and digesting my
projected inner life is experienced as completely free from the physical and
can toy with ideas that can never have a true physical counterpart - the
sphere for instance, that is part of the Platonic 'world'.

Again, because I hold with rationality, for you I am a nihilist - how can
you even talk to me?

I like that you say 'an anthropomorphic deity' would be 'metaphysically
inadequate' and I'd be interested in your explanation of that - your
reasoning, your rationality - maybe you are an atheist and a nihilist too!

Spirits and spirituality; your 'psychic nature' is a better term, I think
people who talk about their spiritual life are people who still believe in
spirits and that's not for me, even though recently I have been reading a
gripping story about vampires.

I agree that the suicide bomber is more like a walking zombie and can't be
described as a nihilist because he doesn't have enough brains - but, Abu
Hamsa, for instance, he's a nihilist - he hasn't got the guts to lay down
his own life but he'll convince and coerce others to do it with relish.

Kant's 'transcendental' as the "condition of experience and anything related
to it", does not make sense to me; I prefer your definition. Jung said that
if the creator were conscious he would not have needed to create conscious
beings. Your Essence certainly has the potential for consciousness (through
evolution) but is it conscious in it's undifferentiated state? Can it
re-integrate?

I can understand from all you have described that your Essence is absolute
and conceivable only through intuition but still cannot imagine it to be
outside of nature; instead, it seems to me to be the underlying fabric of
nature as I said before.

You've denied being a theist and you seem reluctant to call yourself
atheist; perhaps you are the agnostic one.

Ham, I can't reconcile all of your pronouncements about Essence, so I regret
to say that I am unable to decide your theistic status; perhaps, like
Essence, it is unknowable, and vacillating, in a kind of MU no man's land.

Regards

-Peter
On 07/11/2007, Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
> Dear Peter --
>
>
> > I certainly reject the idea of God and the super-natural,
> > so in your terms I am a nihilist.
> >
> > For me nihilism has the strong connotation of immorality
> > and that there is no sense to life, even one's own; in these
> > terms I am not a nihilist as I value my own life and that of
> > others and I seek to add meaning, sense and purpose to
> > my own life.
>
> A concept is beyond human understanding when it can't be explained by the
> laws of nature.  Hence,  Essence is supernatural.  It also transcends the
> conditions of finitude which are time, space, form, and impermanence.  You
> told me in your previous post that, as an atheist, you "have to confront
> the
> question of how did the idea of God arise?"  You don't really have to
> confront that question but you do, which indicates to me that you may be
> more of an agnostic than an atheist.
>
> Actually, the idea of a god, spirit (or gods) running things is quite
> reasonable if you can't account for the phenomena that you
> experience.  The
> pagans observed the sun rise and set each day and concluded it must be a
> god.  Similarly there was a god of storms (or thunder), a god of
> fertility,
> a god of war, etc.  As man learned enough science to explain the workings
> of
> nature, he eventually reduced the number of gods to one.  As he became
> more
> inquisitive and learned to observe, measure and predict natural events,
> the
> gods or spirits were eventually reduced to one.  But for all his
> scientific
> sophistication man is still unable to account for the beginning of
> existence, the separation of being from awareness, and the meaning of
> life.
> If he's totally "objective" he can be persuaded that the world he
> experiences is all there is and that he is a product of it.  Because he
> doesn't realize that value is the pre-intellectual source of his
> knowledge,
> the nihilist assumes that it doesn't exist apart from his experience.  He
> "invents" his values, starting of course with the value of his own life,
> and
> he assigns "meaning" to what makes sense in terms of physical reality.
>
> I define nihilism as a state of denial in which the individual excludes
> the
> possibility of any reality which does not have a rational (i.e.,
> empirical)
> explanation.
>
> > You've said that you think being cannot be divine - have you seen any
> > pictures of Marilyn Monroe?. Seriously though, 'Divine Being' was a
> > phrase you used.
>
> If I used this phrase, it was not in reference to Essence but to theistic
> notions of an anthropomorphic deity which is metaphysically inadequate as
> the primary source.  Divinity is a term generally associated with gods or
> goddesses, and its euphemistic reference to human beings such as Marilyn
> is
> a romantic anthropomorphism.  (Personally, I think the term was more
> befitting an ingénue like Audrey Hepburn.)
>
> > I go along with you when you say that the essence of reality is beyond
> > human description, but I think probably the 'Essence' you refer to is
> not
> > the same as my essence. I am opposed to theism but I'm not proposing
> > religion should be outlawed either. I don't believe in spirits and I
> think
> > people trying to pursue a spiritual way of life are really just trying
> to
> > be
> > more happy.
>
> By "spirituality" I don't mean belief in spirits.  The word connotes the
> "psychic nature" of man as distinguished from his biological organism.
>
> > The Muslim extremist is nihilist because he does not value his own life
> > and his actions are immoral.
>
> All normal people value their own life, no matter what their religious or
> philosophical persuasion.  What makes the extremist's behavior immoral
> (perverse) is the externally forced abandonment of his innate values.
> Suicide bombers, for example, are literally walking zombies.  They've been
> brainwashed by a social order that sacrifices human life for the Will of
> Allah.  Jihadism is a form of genocide that not only destroys individual
> freedom but uses the individual as a weapon of destruction.
>
> > You'll have to try to get me to understand what you mean by
> > 'transcendental
> > essence' before I can say whether I think it qualifies you as an
> atheist.
> > It
> > may be something like a fundamental principle you are proposing though I
> > suspect it may be Creationist (you did refer to creatures before); but
> who
> > knows, we may be singing from the same hymn sheet after all!
>
> Immanuel Kant called transcendental the "condition of experience and
> anything related to it".  He maintained that transcendental knowledge is
> possible, but "transcendent" knowledge is not.  I think of transcendental
> as
> all-encompassing and immanent, whether it is experientially accessible or
> not.  Essence is my term for the primary source of existence, hence is the
> "Creator" with or without the cap C.
>
> Encarta has a good primer on Transcendentalism as developed by Kant,
> Schelling and Fichte in Germany, and also as applied to the mid-19th
> century
> movement represented by the American poets Emerson and Thoreau.  I quote
> the
> opening paragraph:
>
> "The philosophical concept of transcendence was developed by the Greek
> philosopher Plato.  He affirmed the existence of absolute goodness, which
> he
> characterized as something beyond description and as knowable ultimately
> only through intuition.  Later religious philosophers, influenced by
> Plato,
> applied this concept of transcendence to divinity, maintaining that God
> can
> be neither described nor understood in terms that are taken from human
> experience. The doctrine that God is transcendent, in the sense of
> existing
> outside of nature, is a fundamental principle in the orthodox forms of
> Christianity, Judaism, and Islam."
>     --
> [http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761565054/Transcendentalism.html]
>
> This is consistent with my concept, although I have some problems with
> "absolute goodness" and the theistic relevance of "divinity".  I would say
> that Essence is compatible with the doctrine of a "transcendent God" in
> the
> sense that it is "absolute", "knowable only through intuition", and
> "exists
> outside of nature".  While Essence is not directly accessible to human
> experience, it is immanently sensed as Value, and thus is finitely
> "realizable" as the beingness of existence.
>
> So, am I an atheist or not?
>
> Essentially yours,
> Ham
>
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
>