[MD] For Peter

[Ham Priday]

Arlo --

> You've just, once again, claimed my answer to
> "how does it evolve" to be stupid.

If a criticism of your theory on rational grounds implies "stupidity" on 
your part, I defer to the author's judgment.  However, let the record show 
that I did not use that word.

Since the need to justify your mechanistic ontogeny is relentless, here are 
two assertions that any reasonable person - certainly any biologist - would 
find illogical:

1. You explain the "change" from "primates without consciousness" to 
conscious humans as...
> ...a level of neuro-biological complexity brought about by
> DNA-driven biological evolution ...spawned the unintended
> consequence of allowing shared attention and hence the
> emergence of social activity.

This obtuse statement can be reduced to the proposition:
Genetic evolution increases neurological complexity sufficiently to allow 
social interaction.  Assuming that primates are non-conscious (which is not 
supported by
zoologists), how could they "attend" to their own needs, let alone share 
their attention with other creatures?  Attention infers cognizant 
apprehension (consciousness) which you say the primates don't have.

2.  Your theory is based on a collective consciousness ("mythos") which has 
always been a myth to me.
> The mechanism by which consciousness evolves is.... the
> collective consciousness (the "mythos"), which evolves over
> time as new generations and new individuals assimilate it and
> add to it and modify it.

Again, if the individual creature has no conscious awareness - and, indeed, 
there is no consciousness at this juncture - what are the odds that it will 
"assimilate" consciousness from the ethos?

> So tell me yours.

Arlo, your persistence has won out!   What follows is an abridgement of the 
creation hypothesis detailed in my online thesis.

My Creation hypothesis is based in part on the Cusan 'not-other', which 
suggests a negational Essence.  Because Essence is absolute in potentiality 
and contains no otherness, what it negates (or denies) in actuality must 
also be absolute potentially   There is but one possible option: 
Nothingness.  As the antithetical essent, only nothingness shares the 
absolute and undivided status of Essence.  From the existential perspective, 
then, Essence is negational.  Because Essence is absolute and ubiquitous, 
there is no other within or beside it.  The modus operandi for the creation 
of an otherness is abnegation or "self-denial", rather than action or 
movement.  Absolute Essence is the only entity that creates by "exclusion". 
The potential for actualizing the appearance of contrariety (difference) is 
innate in its Oneness.  So that what is perceived by the creature to be 
"evolutionary process" in time and space is in reality a 'fait accompli' of 
the immutable Creator - a metaphysical modality representing what Absolute 
Essence itself is not; i.e., differentiated otherness.

What Essence actualizes as an "other" is its negative or nothingness 
potentiality.  This negation of Nothingness creates difference by 
actualizing Sensibility in contradiction to Being.  In humanistic terms, 
negation is the denial of nothingness.  Negation is not a singular event 
but, rather, an inferred characteristic of Essence that is reflected in the 
actualized "negate" that differentiates and defines the "beingness" of 
existence from its value-sensibility.

As the being-denied negate, the individuated self is the value-sensible 
agent needed to make being aware.  The coupling of proprietary sensibility 
and universal otherness establishes the primary relation for differentiated 
existence.  Insofar as the coincidence of being and awareness - each 
separated by negation, yet bound by value - such a conception is 
metaphysically useful, if not a logical imperative.  In existence, this 
dichotomy is represented (actualized) by the individuated organism with 
which the proprietary self (being-aware) identifies.

Every experience added to being-aware is a move toward unifying the 
self/other dichotomy.  Rather than affirming the being of an object 
experienced, by denying its otherness the cognizant agent affirms (relative) 
value.  This "double-negation" effectively cancels the first, bringing the 
cycle of existence full circle.  In intellectual terms, we realize the 
conditional value of "the other" in the process of defining its existential 
properties.  Or, as a teleological principle, we affirm the Value of Essence 
by negating the otherness of its being.  This reciprocal exchange, perceived 
as "process in space/time existence", represents what in metaphysical terms 
may be described as "the negational (differential or relational) mode" of 
Essence.

 By negating the "otherness" of things so that they become our reality, we 
appropriate their values for our selves.  Insofar as value is perceived 
relationally by the senses, it determines the form of the observed images 
retained in our conscious memory.  But Value is also our affinity for the 
integrity of Essence, which means that it is essential and non-negatable. 
So, by incrementally reclaiming our own displaced value from what we 
experience as being, our awareness not only brings value into beingness, it 
ultimately dissolves the sensibility/otherness dichotomy, restoring 
otherness to its absolute [non-contradictory] identity in the Absolute 
Source.

You will not accept this thesis, because you are beholden to Pirsig's 
hierarchy of existence and reject a metaphysical source.  But at least I 
have provided a complete answer to your question, which you are free to 
frame in the objectivist-mechanistic terms of anthropology at your own risk.

Hopefully, this response will bring our current exchange to a long overdue 
close.

Regards,
Ham
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