[MD] subject / object logic

[Ham Priday]

On 4/5 Joe said:


 > Hi Ham,
>
> IMO You deny time as a dimension.  It seems to me that the delay that
> light takes to reach earth from the sun is a dimension proper to light.
> Do you also deny length, breadth, and height as dimensions? You deny
> motion, no space. You present an ontology that is impossible to discuss
> as I can’t experience your words. I am not fast enough!  By your ontology
> I don’t exist, only Ham knows he exists by knowing nothing.  Ham you are
> the primary source. Convenient!  How does that make you feel?
> I am impressed!

Your sarcasm implies that I have pulled off some deceitful trick on you, 
that my propositions are twisting logic in some way to confuse you.  I 
assure you that this is not the case.

First off, I do not "deny" anything.  (That is your word.)  Remember, I 
defined existence as "appearance" and said that all knowledge is derived 
from it.  I also said that everything in existence is differentiated and 
transitional.  Existence is the actualized mode of Essence which happens to 
be framed in three dimensions (four, if you include time).  We can describe 
existence from our knowledge of it, but we can only define Essence 
conceptually, because we have no direct experience of it.  The confusion 
arises when we try to deal with both systems at once.  Unfortunately, that 
is what the philosopher is obliged to do when developing a metaphysical 
hypothesis to explain reality.

Suppose we just consider Time, as it seems to be your immediate concern. 
IMO time is an intellectual concept to account for the fact that we perceive 
reality as a "process in transition."  All events are experienced serially, 
from past to present, and to some extent projected into the future.  Because 
we are directly aware of only "the present", which is different from "the 
past", we say that this change is a process that moves from the past to the 
future.  But while the serialization of reality into time zones is a 
convenience to understanding, there is no justification for attributing time 
to metaphysical reality.

Alan Watts once likened man's view of reality to someone unfamiliar with 
animals who upon observing a cat through a picket fence describes the 
experience as a head with ears and whiskers, followed immediately by a 
larger body, and lastly by a furry tail.  His point, of course, was that 
from our finite perspective reality unfolds as a series of events in time. 
The interruptions in the sequence are due to the incremental mode of human 
awareness in which all phenomena are experienced as either "now" or "then" 
and become knowledge only as a continuum of events.

Why should reality be "incomplete or unfinished" simply because man's 
organic sensibility is too limited to see it in its entirety?  If existence 
is a constantly evolving process, it has no final destination or form.  But 
suppose reality is a 'fait accompli', and we only see it differentiated as 
existence?  That's what I'm proposing, Joe.  Motion, change, dimensions, and 
relations are all differentiated aspects of experiential reality as it 
appears to man.  The "deception" of appearance is due to the limitations of 
human perception.

We live, work and play by the rules of a differentiated system that is 
always changing and never finished.  But we don't have to conclude that the 
experienced world is the true reality.  (At least I don't.)

What about you, Joe?

--Ham