[MD] Value and the Individual

[Ham Priday]

On April 2, Khaled wrote ...

> Ham
>
> Our western way of thinking (By western I mean the
> influence of the 3 Abrahamic faiths on us) we have put
> the Godhead above us (outside) instead of in-us.
>
> That mode of thinking carries over to the discussions we
> are having here.  On the other hand, thinking that we are
> part of the God and the universe, that our collective is
> that God will force us to think differently.  We are the Value
> and the Quality as it happens.  We fail to see that the Quality
> we seek is an EVENT.  Just like calculus, where you do
> your derivatives to find the value at that instance in space
> and time.  All other ways of looking at things in plain
> Euclidean math.  Quality is not a sustained note, it's a
> moment of awareness.
>
> So in order to answer your question "What is the point of this
> endless war of conquest among levels of Quality if man is not\
> its central focus" you have to put the God, Quality, Godhead
> idea Inside of us and go outward, instead of looking out and
> trying to bring that to your level.  And NO that does not
.> personify the levels, because these values are universals.

Khaled, I appreciate your response, and apologize for not getting back to 
you sooner.  Yours is a wholly different concept than either the MoQ or 
Essentialism.  Your claim that Judeo-Christianity puts the 'Godhead' outside 
us has some merit.  However, consider this statement by Eckhart in the 14th 
century.

>    "Take it for granted that what you look for with God
>     has no essential value, whatever it may be, whether profit,
>     or reward, or spirituality, or whatever.  [Using God] you
>     are looking for nothing and that is why you find nothing.
>     Creatures [by themselves] are pure nothings.  I do not say
>     that they are either important or unimportant but that they
>     are pure nothings.  What has no Being [of and by itself] is
>     nothing.  Creatures have no Being of their own, for their
>     Being is the presence of God.  If God withdrew from them
>     even for a moment, they would all perish.  From time to time
>     I have said-and it is true-that to get all the world together
>     with God is to get nothing more than God alone.  All creation
>     without God could have no more Being than a fly would have
>     without him - just as much - no more or less."

For Eckhart, a Christian mystic, God (or the Godhead) was clearly immanent 
in the creature as the potential for life.  Later Christians used the phrase 
"God in us", which we still hear today, to express their faith.  So I don't 
think it's the believer's concept of God which has obstructed the western 
mind so much as the refusal to accept a "supernatural" source--inside or 
out.  The prevailing belief is that knowledge is the answer to all 
questions, that Science will ultimately resolve the riddle of the universe. 
You and I know this isn't true.

Essentialism is not a theistic philosophy, and I do not subscribe to an 
anthropomorphic deity, nor do I believe in the immortality of life.  I do 
believe in an absolute source, however, which annoys the MOQers.  Everything 
in existence is suspended between being and nothing, a dichotomy held 
together by the Value of Essence.  It is man who senses this value and 
objectivizes his conditional reality from it.  As Protagoras stated, "Man is 
the measure of all things, of the existence of things that are and of the 
non-existence of things that are not."

But since man cannot bring himself into being, only a power that is not 
subject to the conditions and relations of finite beingness possesses that 
potentiality.  I refer to this primary source as Essence, and the logic for 
this concept comes from Cusanus who theorized as his first principle the 
"absolute coincidence of all contrariety".

> When individuals, near and far, agree on Quality and Value,
> and that agreement is the result of an outward search,
> those values tend to stay around for a long time. Plus, they
> are dynamic and allow for change under the influence of
> space and time.

I'm not sure whether this refers to Pirsig's Quality thesis (which is an 
"outward-oriented" hypothesis) or my Essence which is not.  But you have 
raised an important argument for theists, and I always welcome other points 
of view.

Thanks Khaled,
Ham