[MD] Wanted: A proper foundation

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Ham

22 Jan. you wrote:

> If this is your comment -- there's some confusion because you typed my
> greeting line above it -- I find it odd that, having dropped our
> previous discussion, you would want to explore Essentialism for a
> solution to the mind/matter paradox.  Like the MoQ, which I'm told
> cannot be criticized by someone who doesn't accept Pirsig's concept of
> "holistic Quality", I find myself in much the same position.  That is,
> you can't use a philosophy to explain causation if you don't accept
> its fundamental thesis.

Sorry if I don't meet your high standards. However (see my reply to 
Mel in the "Mind/Matter paradox" thread) it IS possible to 
understand how Newton's Physics dissolved Greek Physics' 
paradoxes and - likewise - it's possible to see how the MOQ 
dissolves SOM's paradoxes from ITS premises without any need 
to be a believer. But to my knowledge you have never hinted to 
your Essentialism being a result of any frustration with SOM's 
inconsistencies (paradoxes) much less it having any solution to 
them. So I just wondered.     

> My "holistic source" is absolute, which means that entities or events
> are passing appearances of finitely limited (or reduced) sensibility. 
> As an essentialist, I believe that causation (i.e., cause-and-effect)
> is an intellectual precept derived from the temporal mode of
> experience.  That's why I don't use it in my ontology, but refer to
> creation or "actualization" (in the present tense) instead.  The
> actualized world of man's experience is infinitely differentiated. 
> This suggests that Difference is the nature of existence, and that to
> "actualize" something is to differentiate it from Absolute Essence --
> in other words, to make it an "other" in space/time reality.

Saying that "entities or events are passing appearances of finite or 
reduced sensibility" is a bit easy, but let it wait.   

Bo before:
> > You know what the paradox is? Mind is mind how far one pursues
> > it and matter is matter, the twain never meet, yet matter (body) and
> > mind interacts constantly. For instance I think about moving a
> > finger and as long it's a thought nothing happens, but then I make
> > up my mind and the thought materializes in a finger movement. It
> > works the other way too, I take some chemical "stuff" (a drink) and
> > my mind alters.
 
> I don't know how much of that "chemical stuff" you've been drinking,
> but you're right that mind and matter, awareness and beingness,
> proprietary sensibility and its object are fundamentally different,
> albeit co-dependent in existence.  This, again, is the primary duality
> which Pirsig has made his nemesis. 

My drinking is moderate ;-). SOM his nemesis? If you mean its 
paradoxes and inconsistencies he claims that the MOQ resolves. 
Yes.   

> Duality is the root of difference, and to reject or dismiss this
> principle renders ontology impotent. All differentiation and
> contrariety is derived from the primary division (negation) of
> Sensibility from Essence. That of course includes the subject/object
> contingency you've alluded to. 

Your "Essence" seems to be equal to Pirsig's "Quality", (your) 
primary division Essence/Sensibility, and this (sensibility) includes 
the subject/object pair. Again very like ZAMM's first "moq" where 
Quality's first offshoot were subjects and objects. Don't you see? 

> You exist in the world as a "being-aware". 

Yes, at the intellectual level this is self-evident, but as said you 
don't find a trace about it in old (pre-intellect) texts

> The contingencies of your existence are value-sensibility (proprietary
> awareness) and objectivized being (actualized value).  

You need not deliver these perfunctory "value" for my sake, in my 
opinion the value of the MOQ is the Dynamic/Static division and 
the static levels.

> Neither contingency can exist without the other. 

In the MOQ the only "pair" level is intellect (S/O) and you are right 
neither exists without the other. It's an "aggregate" I call.  

> As a finite entity, your being-aware is unique to you.  As such, you
> are a "provisional" existent, a negated "free agent" of the value which
> connects you to Essence.  (You'll note I've said nothing about
> "intellect" in this ontology.) 

As said, from intellect seen this is obvious, but I repeat that you 
don't find much such talk in the Old Testament or Homer's "Iliad" 
Nothing about "being-aware is unique". only about Sound and 
Fury. 

> If you wish to pursue this line of discussion, I'll be happy to
> accommodate you.  But bear in mind that my entire philosophy is
> predicated on Absolute Essence.  Without this fundamental base, the
> derived tenets and axioms lose their cogency and fall apart.

Could you "draw" a verbal diagram of "Essentialism". I spoke 
about a "diagram fallacy" in ZAMM resulting from Quality being left 
unscathed after the first split. I hope you don't commit the same 
error, but understand that once you have postulated an 
Essence/Sensibility split you have a dualism on your hands.  

Bo