[MD] The Quality of Freedom

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, Mark --



> Hi Ham,
> OK, I am beginning to get your logic. It may be a little
> convoluted as I understand it but OK.
> I am always looking to add to my understanding with bits
> and pieces from others. There is essence and its derivatives.
> In many ways what I read in your lines is another translation
> of Brahman.  Through reductionist philosophy, experience,
> a little science and some deeper understanding, I see a mind
> which experiences the world through the human body. This
> is the personal I. It is possible for it to experience existence
> through anything, the resulting experience in other things
> would not be translatable to this current one, for example
> there may not be a memory component. However, the "I"
> would still be there. This is what I understand may be similar
> to your negation. Now, it would stand to reason that there
> may be different essents which each have their own I which
> experience negational essence through corporeal manifestation.
> On the other hand, there may be a single "I" which experiences
> differentiated experiences (resulting in different people) which
> is the same except for the body it has manifested as.
> So, when I look at someone else, I am actually looking at
> myself in a different incarnation. Eastern philosophies as taught
> to me by Alan Watts and others, subscribe to this. This is your
> Nothingness, which is singular, becoming aware or differentiated.

I'm not sure what an "impersonal I" that can "experience existence through 
anything" is supposed to suggest (Animism?), but I think you are 
extrapolating unnecessarily to force the idea of a "universal 
consciousness."  Why is it that philosophers with a taste for Eastern 
mysticsm view this concept as vital to their ontology?  I cut my wisdom 
teeth on Watts also, but soon realized that his "dance of life" scenario was 
a hallucinogenic fantasy.

Fancying the cognizant 'I' as a collective (all-encompassing) Spirit from 
which we each draw inspiration and wisdom is a tantalizing euphemism, but it 
doesn't bring us any closer to ontological understanding.  My first resolve 
as an essentialist was to accept the fact that everything in existence is 
differentiated, including the self which defines it.  Only in this way is 
the individual free to bring value into the world by his own sensibility. 
The life experience revolves around self and otherness, and the 
differentiated universe is an intellectual product of that differentiation. 
Absolute Essence is the One "not-other".  Everything else (all otherness) is 
divided, that is, negated from that One.

> In fact when an enlightened one (from the East) is approached
> by a confused student, he laughs and says [God] why are you
> playing with me in this way". We tend to confuse ourselves,
> for whatever reason, and forget who we are really.  This is the
> power of experience. It is like diving into an icy cold pond and
> for a second being overwhelmed by the cold and lose a sense
> of who one is. The experience of life causes such a confusion.
> This would imply that there is essence within, which I think is
> I believe allowed within your ontology. It would also indicate
> that there is a "sense" of something even when not manifested
> in the physical world.
>
> It does suggest an Essence which is separate from existence
> (as a physical reality). Of interest to me, is an image, or picture,
> diagraming the transitional process of negation.  It can not be
> either absent or present. The concept of "I" is grown.

Mark, I think you will discover, as I did, that this is a step in the wrong 
direction.  The individual self (value-sensibility) comes about by its 
estrangement from Essence.  As a negated being-aware, the self intrinsically 
senses its lack of "being" and draws its value from the experience of 
otherness.  But this otherness is negated, too, in that it is Essential 
Value objectivized as finite being (finitude).

My 'Value' approximates Pirsig's "undefined DQ", from which we derive all we 
can know of Absolute Essence.  Existence is our construct of Value, not 
Essence.  Had Pirsig taken existence to the next step and posited a Primary 
Source (beyond man's esthetic level), I might find myself agreeing with him. 
As it stands, the MoQ has led us down an existential path that excludes the 
essential Source.  By not acknowledging Quality (Value) as a human 
sensibility, while at the same time proclaiming it the ground of Reality, 
Pirsig has left us with an incomplete metaphysics. (IMO)

Thanks anyway, Mark, and have a great Holiday Season.

Cheers,
Ham