[MD] subject / object logic

[Ham Priday]

Hi Joseph [Platt mentioned] --

[Ham on 9/2]:
> [I]f ultimate reality is non-differentiated, as in the Buddha's
> Oneness or the primary source, it is also non-relational and
> does not move. To be semantically correct, one must concede
> that it is "static" (or, as I prefer to call it, "immutable").

[Joe comments]:
> Ham, after asking a question based on your experience why do
> you propose an "if" scenario about ultimate reality which is
> non-differentiated? I do not know ultimate reality such as what is
> at the center of the sun! I would burn up trying to gain entrance
> into that experience. However, if I say it is undefined I can discuss
> what it is not, e.g. it is not an ice-cube. "Static is defined" is not the
> same sense as "static is immutable". The exact point of movement
> is indefinable, not unknown. Immutable is unchanging in the sense
> of immovable.

If I interpret your question correctly, you're asking why I hypothesize a 
non-differentiated reality, since I cannot possibly "know" or "define" it. 
Actually, that statement is self-explanatory, but I'll enlarge upon it 
below.

> Dynamic Quality and Static quality are references to undefined
> and defined quality. The theory of how we know things is open to
> question. IMO Aristotle is unclear. His description of abstraction,
> demanding a distinction between real existence and intentional
> existence, leading to SOM, has been a stumbling block. American
> philosophers are more pragmatic.

Joe, I don't understand Aristotle's concept of intentional existence, 
either.
I found the following reference to intentionality in an essay on Leibniz at 
www.friesian/com/leibniz.htm .

"In the theory of the 'four causes/ (aitía, 'causes,' 'explanations,' 
'becauses'), Aristotle identified four factors in the explanation of events. 
The most familiar now is the one that is has typically become simply 'the 
cause,' i.e. what Aristotle called the efficient cause, the thing that sets 
the change in motion.  One billiard ball hitting another one, which is how 
the British Empiricists thought about causality, is paradigmatic of 
efficient causation.  Corresponding to every efficient cause, however, there 
was for Aristotle also a final cause, meaning the purpose or the end towards 
which the event aims.  Aristotle thought that every event had both an 
efficient and a final cause, which is hard to understand when we think that 
purpose requires intelligence and intention, but which made perfect sense 
for Aristotle when the substance of things contained an entelékheia, the 
'entelechy' or 'end within,' which brings about, for instance, the growth of 
an acorn into an oak."

My problem with Aristotelian ontology is that it is based on "being", as 
distinguished from Ideas (Plato), Consciousness (Franklin Merrill-Wolf), or 
Quality (Pirsig).  So that, from the start, Aristotle is dealing with a 
defined "substance".  Your "center of the sun" analogy also assumes that 
ultimate reality is a substantive (i.e.,being-based) essence, whether 
defined or undefined.  Such an ontology is not consistent with the MoQ or 
Essentialism in that the fundamental reality is differentiated and 
relational.

Pirsig equivocates on this issue, since he defines Quality as "the primary 
empirical reality."  This prompts one to ask: What, then, is the primary 
"metaphysical" reality?
In my view, he doesn't acknowledge that there is one.  As Platt says, "the 
MOQ 'viewpoint' took our everyday experience of everyday events."  The MoQ 
is not a true metaphysical thesis, since Pirsig's ontology extends no 
further than the experiential world.  This is why I contend that Quality 
(which is experiential) does not qualify as the primary source.

I'm not sure I've addressed your question as you would wish.  Essentialism 
is predicated on an absolute primary source which I call Essence.  Any 
source that is relational, dynamic, or subject to change or conditions, is 
in my view "sub-prime".

Thanks, Joe, and best regards,
Ham