[MD] Dawkins quotes RMP on religion.

[Ham Priday]

Ron asks:

> How did value sensibility begin?
> How did the universal pattern start?
> It clearly not always was.  Please elaborate on this.

First, let's dispense with the precept of "always", since assigning duration 
is a function of intellection, not reality.  From the perspective of Essence 
evolution is a fait accompli.  Accordingly, everything I explain in this 
elaboration is described in the present tense.

Although the concept is not readily grasped by the Western mind, there is a 
logical principle known as "the coincidence of opposites" by which a 
non-describable ontology can be conceived.  Loosely stated, it's the 
proposition that if Essence is not "otherness" and beingness is the 
experiential appearance of an other other, then what appears to be the 
object of our experience is actually something else-something that we 
ourselves create.

We only know two modes of reality: the awareness of it, and the beingness of 
it.  Together they create being-aware-the phenomenal substance of cognizant 
perception.  For something to be it must first be made aware to an observer. 
George Berkeley introduced phenomenalism to philosophy in the 18th century 
with the axiom esse est percipi, "to be is to be perceived."

What Essence actualizes as the appearance of "other" is its differential 
potentiality.  Because Essence is absolute and ubiquitous, there is no other 
within or beside it.  Therefore, in order to create difference, it "invents" 
an otherness by denying what it is not.  The logic for such a denial is that 
absolute potentiality includes the power to negate absolutely that which it 
is not intrinsically.  Since Essence is defined as "all that is," it is the 
logical equivalent of "nothing that is not."  Nothingness is not intrinsic 
to Essence and, as the antithesis of Essence, it is also absolute and 
represents the negation [i.e., the 'not-'] of what Essence is.  Rather than 
"something created from nothing," finite existence as we experience it is 
actually a manifestation of Essence reduced by the nothingness that divides 
it.  The nothingness conceals its wholeness.

Negation of the absolute Whole equates to difference with nothingness as the 
differentiator.  Negation does not directly create being; it actualizes 
Difference as two primary essents which are divided by nothingness and 
conjoined by Value.  This is the dichotomy of Sensibility and Otherness. 
Pure sensibility is psychic (non-being), while its complementary essent is 
insensible.  Value links the two contingencies together and represents the 
copula in being-aware.

Not until value is differentiated by the brain is it experienced as being in 
space/time, so that the experience of an object is precisely what 
constitutes the object: they are one and the same.  Since experience is the 
perspective of reality as process in time and space, we can say only that it 
begins as a nothingness with the propensity to sense the value of otherness, 
eventually making value the reality of being.  The reciprocity of negation 
and affirmation, (proprietary) awareness and (universal) being, each 
separated from the absolute source by nothingness, establishes the primary 
relation for differentiated beingness.

Epistemologically, experience is a secondary (double) negation by the mind 
or self.  As the agents of Value we incrementally negate the 'otherness' of 
things so that they become our reality, and so that we can appropriate their 
value for our selves.  Insofar as value is perceived relationally by the 
senses, it is the intellect that 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. 
This incremental reclamation of our displaced value from what we experience 
as being  ultimately unites the dichotomy, restoring both sensibility and 
otherness to their absolute (non-contradictory) identity in the Source.

What I've typed above is actually a précis of the creation hypothesis from 
my recently published book, 'Seizing the Essence".  If you're seriously 
interested, it's available from the publisher, www.Xlibris.com/Bookstore  or 
Amazon online for $20.  (Just type the word "Seizing" on the Search line to 
access it.)  Of course, I'll be happy to answer specific questions or try to 
clarify anything that doesn't make sense to you.

I hope I've addressed your present questions, and well as giving you a 
better idea of my metaphysics.  And thanks for indulging me in a plug for my 
book.

Essentially yours,
Ham