[MD] Is Quality Different from (Mother) Nature?

[Ham Priday]

Hi Joe --


> I have an understanding of your ontology, certainly not as deep
> as yours, my understanding is of the limited intellectual variety.
> I appreciate you putting it into words. Because of my limited
> understanding, I find it a bit thin. How do you explain this
> separation of Sensibility?  Yes, it is a way of looking at awareness,
> but by creating duality with Essence and its negation you leave
> some fundamental questions unanswered. Perhaps it is not for
> us to get more details. When a bubble forms in a glass, that air
> is estranged from it's source, and momentarily has existence
> (Sensibility). This kind of explanation gives me a better sense of
> what you are talking about. Is there meaning to our separation?
> Is it to observe essence?  Did essence need a vacation?

I knew that reducing my ontogency to two short paragraphs would evoke 
questions, and I'm happy to answer what I can.  Actually, your "limited 
understanding" is right on target, and the questions you've posed are to be 
expected.  What I outlined in the previous post is my personal construct of 
reality, including the value-sensibility of the self as an 'existent'.  The 
dynamics by which an absolute source gives rise to differentiated entities 
is pure hypothesis on my part.  I've, tried to extend logical reasoning as 
far as possible in working out my metaphysics, but please don't ask me to 
support my assertions objectively.  (As I've said before, absolute Truth is 
inaccessible to man, and I have a hunch there's a logical reason for that, 
as well.)

I do not attempt to "describe" Essence or its "motivation", for the obvious 
reason that such knowledge is denied to us.  It is self-evident, however, 
that existence is fundamentally divided into subjects and objects, that 
subjects are aware, and that objects are finite, diverse, and relational. 
Logically, whatever exists conditionally must have an ultimate, 
unconditional cause or source.  (To deny a primary source leads to the 
paradoxical infinite regression of prior causes.)

In the 15th century, Nicholas of Cusa [aka Cusanus] developed a theory based 
on the "not-other" as a symbolic connotation for God.  He 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 asserts, because God 
is not other than any [particular] other, even though "not-other" and 
"other" [once derived] are opposed.  This theory has had a profound 
influence on me.  Not only is it a paradigm for relating "otherness" to the 
primary source, it offers a non-descriptive connotation for this source 
whose attributive nature is otherwise ineffable.

Using Cusa's concept of "actualized contrariety", whereby an existent can be 
defined both positively (in terms of what it is) and negatively (in terms of 
what it is not), and defining Essence as "all that is" (which is the 
equivalent of "nothing that is not"), I concluded that Essence can be 
conceived as both absolute potentiality and absolute actuality without 
contradiction.  And, since negation does not alter the Absolute Source, its 
manifestation as a 'dichotomy' of nothingness and being is the appearance of 
differentiated existence.

Your 'bubble in a glass' analogy shows your grasp of the duality principle, 
so let's use that metaphor.  We'll assume that the glass contains water 
(H2O) in which hydrogen and oxygen are undifferentiated.  Let's say that 
some air (oxygen) is released (negated) from the water, forming a bubble. 
The gas in the bubble is an analog for individuated Sensibility, while the 
surrounding water is viewed as Otherness.  What separates the two media is 
the thin sphere of film that differentiates the gas from its aqueous Source. 
The surface tension that creates this film can be analogized as either the 
Value of Otherness or the Negation of Beingness.  Nothing is lost or gained 
in this negation; the elements of water simply appear conditionally in a 
differentiated form.

There you have an empirical model that roughly approximates the negation of 
primary difference--(Sensibility/Otherness), as well as its individuated 
subjects and objects.  I hope this helps you to conceptualize Creation in a 
metaphysical context.  I'll discuss the moral aspects of this ontogeny 
(i.e., meaning and purpose) in a later post, although you've probably 
gathered this from the views I've expressed on individual freedom and value 
sensibility.

Essentially yours,
Ham