[MD] Fundamental Reality and Creation

[Platt Holden]

Hi Ham,

I have trouble imagining a solid block of concrete without boundaries
because it is boundaries that make it possible to conceptualize blocks and
solids.  I think in essence (no pun intended}, your theory says from one
comes many, or from a whole comes parts. No argument there.

Regards,
Platt



On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 6:08 PM, Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:

> To those whose metaphysical quest has been preempted by the pursuit of "the
> intellect" --
> Now that we have the intellect squared away, or at least in the throes of
> being defined, I would like to take up the most fundamental of all questions
> -- What is Reality and how does it create?
>
> Inasmuch as the world, the individual, experience, and intellectual thought
> all participate in Reality, it seems to me that this is logically the first
> question a philosopher should be obliged to answer. There's a method to my
> madness, of course, and your answers can help resolve a logical problem in
> my metaphysics that I've been struggling with for years.  It concerns the
> 'ex nihilo' principle, which has been disputed by some here (for the wrong
> reasons, I believe), but I may have an explanation that will satisfy them.
>
> As a universal principle, I think most of us would agree that we can't get
> something from nothing.  Getting something from nothing refutes the laws of
> logic, thermodynamics, relativity, and cause-and-effect.  Even an
> evolutionist understanding of creation places the beginning as the "first
> cause", whether it's a big bang or an unbalanced mass of energy.  Few, if
> any, physicists accept the idea that an absolute void can give rise to
> anything, let alone an  infinite universe.  Yet, the universe was created
> and does exist, and I've been criticized for stating that nothingness is the
> ground of its existence.  Okay, so far?
>
> Well, I'm about to propose that there is a singular variance to this rule
> and   I'll explain it using analogies, so please withhold your logical
> arguments until you have a grasp of the concept.  My idea has to do with the
> reduction of an absolute.
>
> Pretend for a moment that absolute reality is a solid block of concrete, a
> block so large that it has no boundaries.  Now, suppose a fracture occurs in
> this concrete monolith, effectively dividing it in two.  Since the block
> occupies all of space, the "crack" would necessarily be infinitesimal, like
> the imaginary line that serves to describe geometric figures.  Nonetheless,
> for all practical purposes, the block has undergone a difference: it is no
> longer a unity but has spawned an "other" by virtue of that infinitesimal
> fissure.
>
> In my website thesis I use the analogy of the mountain climber who has
> ascended to the highest summit and for whom further progress can only be
> descent.  Both analogies demonstrate that an absolute source is the singular
> entity for which creation, difference, or the appearance of otherness is
> exclusionary rather than additive.  Note that they do not refute the 'ex
> nihilo' principle.  They do not assume nothing as the primary source.  What
> they suggest is that for an absolute source the creation of difference is
> "reductive" in nature.  Only an absolute entity creates by "exclusion",
> which is to say that existence is not something "added" to nothingness but,
> rather, the potential of nothingness to create the appearance of divided
> otherness.
>
> Whether you call the primary source God, Supreme Being, Dynamic Quality,
> the Intellectual Level, Sensibility, Consciousness, Atman, or Life-force, if
> you believe that this source is absolute, I submit that the ontogeny of
> creation must follow the principle of negation (i.e., exclusion or
> reduction) as outlined above.
>
> I doubt that you'll find any clarifying statements from Pirsig on this
> topic, but would like to see how you respond and to what extent you agree
> with this proposition.
>
> Thanks, folks.
> Ham
>
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