[MD] The SOM/MOQ discrepancy.

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, Krimel --


 [Ham]:
> When I say "Primary", I'm referring to that which transcends
> process.  Since Essence is absolute and immutable, it is not
> caused or created and, unlike man, is not dependent on
> otherness (being).  From the perspective of Essence, there is
> no other.

 [Krimel]:
> You are not "solving" the problem of the chain of causality here;
> you are simply defining it away. You don't answer the question
> of what caused essence.

Essence is the beginning and end of causality, which is man's intellection 
of "things in process."  Absolute Oneness neither possesses nor is subject 
to the conditions of space/time existence.  A chain is of no value unless it 
is attached to something permanent.  The view that existence is a "chain of 
causal effects" leads to the absurdity of an infinite regression of causes. 
I resolve this paradox by positing the ultimate cause as the uncreated 
Source.  This is no great breakthrough, Krimel; Eastern mystics and Western 
theologians have accepted the concept of an immutable source for thousands 
of years.  Why should we reject this idea simply because we're opposed to 
the dogma of a "personal diety"?

Man is the product of a dichotomy, a splitting of the One into two by 
nothingness, which is the beginning of Difference.  This results in the 
appearance of a relational world of which the cognizant agent is a 
'being-aware'.  Because the experience of this agent is incremental in time, 
phenomena are seen as events coming into existence as effects of an 
antecedent cause.  And since we don't know what started this stream of 
events, we defer to Science which holds that it began with a Big Bang. 
While that answer satisfies the objectivists, it is obvious that prior 
forces must have been in place for the Bang to occur.  What were these 
forces?  (Quality patterns?)  And what created them?  (DQ?)  Such 
speculation is nonsensical, and we are back to the infinite regression 
paradox.

The only solution is to understand "process" (the sequence of events) as an 
illusion of man's experience.  The separation of an absolute source into a 
multiplistic system of relational things is the temporal mode of human 
experience.  But it allows the Value of the Source to be realized, which is 
man's inextricable link to his essential Source.  It makes sense if you can 
ignore the labels that detractors are bound to throw at it.

Good to hear from you again, Krimel.  Your comments are somewhat of a rarity 
these days.

Best regards,
Ham