[MD] Wanted: A proper foundation

[Ham Priday]

Hi Bo --

> 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.

Nothing wrong with your "standards", Bo.  I simply wanted to alert you that 
any explanation of causation that I could offer would necessarily involve 
the basic tenets of (Ham's) Essentialism.  Since you called our previous 
discussion "still-born" and decided to end it, I was surprised that you came 
back to me with a question about causation.  Now you're saying that the 
causal explanation I provided is a bit too "easy":

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

I also said that we must recognize the binary nature of existence which 
Pirsig prefers to ignore.  (I suggested it was his "nemesis", which may be 
too strong a word, although the claim has been made that his MoQ "overcomes" 
dualism.  This, to my thinking, is a rejection of the obvious.

> SOM his nemesis? If you mean its paradoxes and
> inconsistencies he claims that the MOQ resolves.
> Yes.

[Ham, previously]:
> 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.

[Bo]:
> 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?

I posit Absolute Essence as the ultimate reality.  It's the fundamental 
premise of my philosophy.  Pirsig seems to posit Quality as a pre-emergent 
force or teleology supporting evolution -- things and events in process. 
That's a time-based phenomenon derived from the temporal mode of experience. 
His "metaphysics" is a metaphorical description of the universe as we 
experience it.  My thesis is an attempt to get beyond process in space/time 
and explain the metaphysical reality supporting it.  Inasmuch as all 
knowledge comes from experience, the first step toward developing a 
plausible ontology is to examine the subjective source of that experience, 
as Descartes did.  He concluded that the only truth he could be certain of 
was that he existed: "I think, therefore I exist."  Yet, he could not think 
without a physical body and the proprietary awareness that its sensibility 
made possible.  This is the contingency I have called "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.

I'm not interested in what my "pre-intellectal" forbearers wrote.  Why do 
you persist in compounding the metaphysical problem with anthropological 
history?  Must my theory have the consensus of primitive man?

[Ham, previously]:
> The contingencies of your existence are value-sensibility (proprietary
> awareness) and objectivized being (actualized value).

[Bo]:
> 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.

Value is essential to my philosophy, dynamic and static are not.

> 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 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.

My theories don't come from Homer, Aristotle, or Moses.  Again, if you want 
to analyze the collective thought of mankind, I'm not the one you should be 
talking to.

> 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.

What elements do you want me to diagram?  It would appear that you're 
looking for a "chronology of cosmic events", such as Pirsig's 
Inorganic-->Organic-->Social-->Intellectual.  That's anthropology, not 
ontology.  In my view, there are no events.  There is only Essence and its 
differentiated modality (appearances).

I'm basically a phenomenologist.  I view "things" and "events" as 
differentiated phenomena of experience.  What is absolute is complete 
potentiality in itself and can not "add" to its status or possess an 
"other".  The "act" of creation is therefore an exclusion rather than an 
addition to Essence.  From the human perspective, Essence is "reductive". 
It creates the appearance of finitude (otherness) by denying what it is not. 
My hypothesis is that Nothingness is the "negate" which becomes the sensible 
subject, and the value of Essence is the objective other (beingness) 
actualized by the negate in what is essentially  a "double negation".  The 
primary dichotomy is Sensibility/Otherness, and it is from this dualism that 
all difference and contrariety is derived-- including being/aware, 
space/time, self/other, here/there, cause/effect, beginning/end, 
large/small, pleasure/pain, rough/smooth... (you name it).

I can't draw you a diagram, but I can elaborate on this, if you'd like.  Or, 
you can read my Creation Hypothesis at 
www.essentialism.net/mechanic.htm#reality .

Appreciate your interest, as always.

Ham