[MD] MOQ: Treatment of Opposites

[Ham Priday]

On 8/30/09 at 12:39 AM, "markhsmit" <markhsmit at aol.com> wrote to Ham:


> Yes, I think I understood your negation of essence.
> I don't disagree with what it proposes. I suppose that
> what I was trying to formulate, for myself, was a method
> for discriminating between that which does not exist
> outside of our experience and that which does. For this
> I used the concept of opposite. Often I hear that
> everything exists only in our head (nothing to do with
> your ontology), and I do not find that useful.
> The negation of essence could also be called the
> creation of our reality, could it not?

Yep, you've nailed it.  Creation is the awakening of the self to the reality 
from which it was negated.  In that sense it's a "collaboration" of 
value-sensibility and essential value resulting in a representational 
"otherness".

In working out this ontology, the principle I was certain of was that Value 
is the "stuff" of the created universe and that difference is its nature. 
As I saw it, there were two ways to account for the genesis of a 
differentiated world by negation from Absolute Essence.  What I had to 
decide was whether the "negate" was Value itself or the sensible subject.

For the negate to be Value, Essence would have to deny (or exclude) this 
aspect of its own nature.  This would produce a Value/Otherness dichotomy in 
which the sensible self was the negated value.  Sensibility (subjective 
awareness) would then have to be intrinsic to, or derived from, Value. 
Since this was problematic, I opted for the alternative choice, positing the 
self as the sensible negate and defining the dichotomy as 
Sensibility/Otherness. This allows Value to "fill the nothingness" of 
Sensibility and become its objectove other through experience.

> If I give it some thought, with my pea brain, there must be
> a mechanism for this negation. A synthesis if you will.
> If that mechanism is understood, then it should be possible
> to disable it and join essence while one is still alive.
> I don't believe this can be done through logic which may be
> perhaps the ultimate negation. But perhaps through other means...

I see you're still looking for a mystical (mind-altering) shortcut to 
Essence which, as I noted before, is highly improbable.  I say this because 
the biological organism on which you depend for sensory information is 
simply not capable of transcending its finite nature, and because subjective 
awareness is a negated "other" which cannot co-exist with its not-other 
source.  The only link we have to Essence is its Value, and we can only 
sense Value as an "external agent", not "become" it.  But acknowledging your 
longing for the source from which you are estranged is a seminal step in 
developing a personal philosophy.

I'm afraid you'll have to satisfy that longing conceptually, with a 
metaphysical paradigm intuitively constructed that makes sense and has 
meaning for you.  Indeed, this is the role philosophy has always played in 
human understanding.

Cheers and best wishes,
Ham


On 29 Aug 2009 at 3:57 PM "markhsmit" <markhsmit at aol.com> wrote:


> I do not claim to be well read in the subject of MOQ,
> and I post this as a means of obtaining opinions. Recently,
> I read a post which suggested we exist somewhere in the
> middle of opposites. That is on a continuum between good
> and evil, pain and pleasure, up and down and so forth.
> This is a common theme in Taoism. The Yin and the Yang.
> While these may not necessarily be considered to be
> opposites, they certainly co-sustain each other in an active
> way. DQ and SQ are these opposites or do they interplay
> in a way similar to Yin and Yang?
>
> The question is how does MOQ deal with the concept of
> opposites?

It doesn't. Pirsig has avoided metaphysical explanations. However, let me
suggest an answer based on my own ontogeny. It's only a hypothesis, but
please give it some consideration and let me know if it seems plausible. (I
hestitate to use the word "logical", since classical logic applies only to
relational systems.)

My premise is that the "opposite" (antithesis) of any existing thing is
nothing. This is inductive reasoning from the principle that existence
itself is a being/nothing duality. In my ontology an object, entity or
particular being is actualized by nothingness. This doesn't make
nothingness an "active agent" but, rather, a contingency of experience which
IS the "creator". Moreover, it's the only ontology I'm aware of that makes
beingness no more "real" than nothingness. Why is this significant?
Because existence is the world of finite appearances, whereas Reality is
neither being nor nothing but absolute Essence -- that which "is" as
"not-other".

My "logic" is that Difference is required for things to exist. Since
Essence is absolute and undivided, Difference can arise only by the negation
of Essence. My hypothesis is that, from the human perspective, Essence is
"negational"; that is to say, it negates the antipodal nothingness
(anti-essence) to create Difference and the "otherness" that constitutes the
cognizant subject's objective experience.

> I would state that anything without an opposite exists.
> This brought me to my question, what is the opposite
> of a chair? Marsha has suggested (I think) that a chair
> is defined by its opposite. While I can understand this
> in terms of the presence of a chair (its opposite being
> its absence), I can't grasp this for the chair itself.

Okay, now compare your analysis of Marsha's suggestion with my ontogeny
above. Can you grasp my "duality" theory any better than her "opposites"
theory?

In the 15th century, Cusanus surmised that the "first principle" (God)
transcends all opposition. He envisioned it as the opposite of contrariety,
and defined it as the Not-other, leaving "otherness" (finitude) as the
experienced "reduction" of what is infinite or absolute. Existence is a
relational system of things and events divided by nothingness. Without
nothingness a thing could not exist (appear to be). Hence, the reasoning
for a negated nothngness that makes existence possible.

Does this make any sense to you, Will? I'd really like to know what you
think.

Essentially yours,
Ham