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

[Ham Priday]

On 11/29/09 1:48 PM, Joseph Maurer" <jhmau at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Hi Ham and All,
>
> I was musing about DQ in levels of evolution as the root of morality.
>
> DQ gravity identifies the inorganic level.
> DQ instinctive procreation by cell splitting is the organic level.
> DQ instinctive procreation by the penetration of the egg cell
> wall by the sperm cell identifies a second higher organic level.
> DQ Consciousness evolves from instinct and appears at the
> Social level which I prefer to call the Emotional level.
> DQ Consciousness-instinct evolves further to the Intellectual level SO.
> Here any intuition of evolution stops for most of us.
> DQ consciousness can evolve to a higher emotional level in
> consciousness only e.g. heroes.
> DQ consciousness can evolve to a higher intellectual level in
> consciousness only, renowned philosophers.
>
> When I think of a morality based on essence, I get confused.
> I do not expect a hierarchy in essence since essences are exclusive
> of order.

Your "morality" musings are a riddle to me.  Is your obsession with levels a 
deference to Pirsig?
I don't see that our understanding of reality is enhanced by such a 
hierarchy.  It certainly doesn't represent my philosophy of Essence, and I 
doubt that Pirsig would accept this moralistic paradigm.

For the record, Essence is immutable and indivisible.  It does not evolve or 
branch out into pluralistic layers of quality, however you define them.  No 
wonder you are confused!  There are no "essences".  All of the above cited 
"levels" are your own intellectual construct (reification) of experience.

Differentiation occurs as a negation of Essence, not as an evolution or 
progression of the uncreated source.  The primary difference is the negation 
of nothingness which separates Sensibility from Otherness.  Both of these 
entities are "negates" or essents, meaning negational derivatives of 
Essence.  This is the basis of all contrariety in experiential existence --  
subject and object, awarenss and being, self and other, beginning and end, 
here and there, large and small, life and death, good and bad, attraction 
and repulsion, joy and pain, etc.  The fact that we perceive happenings as a 
series of events in time and space is the mode of our experience.  The 
phenomena that you have identified as "gravity" and "procreation" are 
intellectualized from experience which, in turn, is the actualization of 
your sensibility (to the value of other).  Intellection requires 
"consciousness", which is self-actualization.

> I kind of accept your statement that:   You can't have a created
> world without an uncreated source. Ex nihilo nihil fit -- nothing
> comes from nothingness.
>
> In the face of evolution, something else is added to the mix. There
> is no way to accept a hierarchy of essential beings!  They would lose
> the quality of being essential.  Morality then becomes illogical.

You've got that right.  But what you say is "added to the mix" is really 
"subtracted" (i.e., negated) from the Source.  Simply put, Existence is a 
reduction of Essence.  What we experience is divided by nothingness to 
represent sensible Value as discrete objects and events.

> Aren¹t we trying to describe a metaphysics from which morality
> flows to avoid positing the tyrannical laws of an unknowable illogical
> supreme being?

That appears to be your aim, Joe.  It's not mine.  For me the universe is 
amoral so that I may be free to determine my own morality.  I have no 
obeisance to tyrannical laws imposed on me by either religion or government, 
nor do I acknowledge a "supreme being".  The fact that the Absolute Source 
is unknowable does not make it "illogical".  What is illogical is my 
existence without a primary source.

> If one supreme essence is illogical, and depends on faith for
> acceptance, many supreme essences are impossible.
> It does not seem to be a good way to approach morality, and
> evolution is in the toilet, and "Ham says" must be taken as gospel.

As I stated above, there is but one Essence.  There is no reason or logic 
for multiple "essences".
You are free to approach morality in any way you see fit.  Indeed, freedom 
of choice is the morality of Essentialism.  It is the individual who 
develops morality from his/her value-sensibility, which is why absolute 
knowledge is inaccessible to man.  If morality were intrinsic to the 
universe, as you seem to believe, you would have no choice but to "go with 
the flow."

Thanks, Joe, but no thanks.  Better luck next time.

Cheers,
Ham

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

> Hi Joe --
>
> [Ham, previously to Mark]:
>> The human body and its neuro-sensory system are the biological
>> "instrument" of sensibility.  But the Value of which it is sensible
>> comes from the prime essence.  This is what Science, with all its
>> investigative resources, is unable to discover.  It's not something
>> you can research and confirm from empirical evidence.
>
> [Joe]:
>> Carbon!  It is found in coal, and in a sentient being. The simplest
>> explanation is that it exists differently in the two instances and has
>> different qualities.  It is not derived from a "prime essence" of carbon.
>> Indeed, "prime essence" is a contradiction when speaking of an
>> individual since individuality is a logical contradiction to primacy.
>> Where there is one, prime, two logically follows.  Two carbons
>> exist differently and the contradiction disappears.
>
> UREKA!  You have found it?
>
> Carbon is the building block of organic chemistry, so it has been called
> "the element of life".  Actually, water (hydrogen and oxygen) are more
> essential to life than carbon.  But, like all elements in the periodic
> table, carbon has a specific atomic weight which distinguishes it as an
> element.  Isn't this individuality as much a "logical contradiction to
> primacy" as is the human individual?  Yet carbon and its molecular forms
> (including organic) must be derived from an "uncreated" soruce.
>
> Your rule that "two logically follows from one" is a mathematical 
> principle,
> not a metaphysical concept.  Mark had suggested that Quality could be
> replaced by a number of words, including "prime source".  But the "primary
> source" has nothing to do with "prime numbers"; it connotes the essence 
> that
> is primary to numbers, difference, and relations.  Everything that exists 
> is
> separate and "individuated" from everything else.  Does this 
> "contradiction
> to primacy" invalidate an essential source?  Logically not.
>
> The fallacy in basing ontology on a substantive element like carbon is 
> that
> an element is a "thing", and things are experiential constructs of value.
> Pirsig based his ontology on Quality which is not a physical thing but
> requires a sensible agent to realize it.  So neither carbon nor quality 
> can
> be the fundamental reality, even though both are derived from a primary
> source.  When you deny the fundamental source, you deny existence as a
> causal possibility.  You can't have a created world without an uncreated
> source.  Ex nihilo nihil fit -- nothing comes from nothingness.
>
> Essentially speaking,
> Ham