[MD] Tit's

[Ham Priday]

Krimel --

While I await your theory of "energy transduction" as it applies to Quality 
and/or Value, I'll try to mediate your "vigorous disagreement that we have a 
'sense of Essence, the uncreated non-existent source of existence'."   Since 
neither of us can offer "proof" of our respective ontologies, I don't expect 
to change your view, but will offer a plausible argument for my reasoning 
that may make more sense to you.

> What reason can you give for suspecting the existence
> of an uncreated Absolute unchanging source or whatever
> it is you are evasively calling God?

I start with the premise that nothing comes from  nothing, 'ex nihilo nihil 
fit', which is attributed to Parmenides and is the basis for the theory of 
first cause.  Since experience tells us that everything in existence had a 
beginning, including the experiencing subject, we have no reason to assume 
that physical reality, or the energy of which it is composed, has always 
existed.  Cognizant beings and things do not create themselvces.  Therefore, 
it is a reasonable assumption that the appearance of finitude (what we call 
"existence") is the result of creation.  If man and his universe are 
created, then it is also reasonable to assume a Creator.

Now, because it is unfashionable in our "enlightened" age to acknowledge the 
possibility of a creator, postmodernists have bent over backwards to come up 
with theories from the Big Bang to "parallel universes" in order to 
discredit or mythologize this notion.  Pirsig has attained some success in 
establishing DQ as the source of reality, but his aversion to theism and his 
avoidance of metaphysical definitions have not helped his cause.

By contrast, the essentialist view of Creation is based on a primary source 
that is absolute and immutable, which means it has no boundaries or 
divisions and is not subject to the conditions of space/time causality. 
Essence is not an 'existent", so technically it doesn't "exist", in the same 
sense that "nothingness" doesn't exist.  However, Essence is the antithesis 
of nothingness.  My ontology is supported by Cusan logic.  The 15th century 
neoplatonist logician and astronomer Cusanus argued that, although God is 
indefinable, it can be stated that the world is not God but is not anything 
_other_ than God.  God is 'not other', he said, because God is not other 
than any (particular) other, even though 'not-other' and 'other' (once 
derived) are opposed.  But no other can be opposed to God from whom it is 
derived.  The Cusan 'First Principle' -- not-other is the coincidence of all 
contrariety -- rules out Divine Being, anthropomorphic deities, or any 
external entity as a causitive ource or creator.

In fact, Cusanus left us with a workable definition for the ineffable Source 
whose attributive nature is otherwise indefinable.  Possibility and 
actuality, he said, are co-dependent in existence but coincide in the 
non-contradictory Source-ultimate reality in which opposites like 'positive 
and negative', 'subject and object', and 'being and nothing' are not 
mutually exclusive but equivalent.  In the Oneness of Essence, all 
difference is eliminated.  There is no "other" for Essence because Essence 
itself is not other.  Moreover, because the ultimate source transcends both 
differentiation in space and change in time, it IS absolutely.  That is to 
say, Essence is primary,  absolute and uncreated, whereas any created thing 
(essent) is reductively derived as a "secondary" manifestation of Essence.

I have outlined a hypothesis for creation in my website which you probably 
won't read.  But insofar as you question my reasons "for suspecting an 
absolute source"', this is the best I can do in this limited space. 
Meantime, I look forward to learning more about your energy-transducing 
ontogeny (epistemology?) when you have the time.

Regards,
Ham