[MD] Marsha's (s)OL

[markhsmit]

Hi Ham,
Your negation is what I would call Intellectualizing.  If one does not remember
or equate the moment in a mirrored way, it is possible to be Essence.

The participation in Essence can be described through negation, after the
fact, although the memory of it will only appear as a sensation.  It is 
therefore through the use of music or poetry, where no logic can be
applied that Essence can be described at all accurately.  It is important
to note that during such a description, one is negating that Essence.

We were Essence before we were born, only because we cannot remember
it and describe it in a communicative way, but it is possible to sense being dead
while one is alive.

You will know when you are living in the moment or in Essence because you will not
remember it.  There is in fact nothing to remember.  This happens to us all the time.

One can also force this Being through techniques.  We are in fact drifting in and
out of Essence through quantum leaps, as dictated through the quantum nature
of time.

Our bodies (our brains included) are like windows into this sensory feedback 
world.  Essence is looking through that window.  Feel what it is like to be the looker.

Cheers,
Willblake2

On Oct 15, 2009, at 3:42:18 PM, "Ham Priday" <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:
From:   "Ham Priday" <hampday1 at verizon.net>
Subject:    Re: [MD] Marsha's (s)OL
Date:   October 15, 2009 3:42:18 PM PDT
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Hi Marsha --


> Thank you for this post. I may have questions for you some time,
> but I do find your language tricky, and never feel adequately that I
> understand what you've written. I'll keep trying.

I apologize for the semantic difficulties. Metaphysics does not lend itself 
easily to language and logic. As a consequence, most metaphysical concepts 
are intangible and vague at best. But I'm now making an effort to express 
my philosophy in common terms, providing examples wherever possible.

> I'm curious, did you read that little story I sent to John.
> Did you sense a compatibility with your Essence philosophy?

I assume you're referring to the "Middle Way Consequence School" story 
concerning the suffering associated with a desire for carrots..

Unlike Buddhists, I don't believe suffering is caused by desire. While we 
may yearn for a beloved person who is estranged from us, or be distraught in 
not achieving a desired goal, the "suffering" is psycho-emotional in nature. 
And it can inspire us to repair that damned rototiller and produce our own 
carrot juice.

I can see how the idea that "it is the relationships, the interdependencies 
that are the reality" parallels Prisig's "interelational patterns". But I 
don't think your story helps explain the Philosophy of Essence, since the 
Middle Way is not really compatible with life as an existent. As I've 
pointed out before, Pirsig is not interested in a transcendent reality, 
although his DQ comes close to it. Like the Zen philosophy that influenced 
his novels, the MoQ is mainly a moral-aesthetic paradigm for existence. It 
is not a metaphysical theory, nor even a full-fledged ontology, but rather 
the use of metaphor and euphemism
to "reify" an abstract concept of Quality.

In your narative, the farmer first muses about the "essential nature" of a 
carrot, then concludes that
it has no independent being but only a set of relationships. These 
relationships are neither "being" nor "essence". They are the "values" that 
represent our connection to Essence. When we experience existents as 
concrete beings, we deny (intellectually) that reality is anything but a 
collection of "others". (This denial is the "double negation" you 
mentioned earlier.) We negate each "other" (thing or event) experienced to 
make it a finite piece of our reality, while consuming the values of that 
particular object.
Since we are negates in the first place, what this amounts to is penetrating 
otherness with our own nothingness to extract its value for our selves. 
What is left of this doubly-negated other is an empty being that represents 
the thing's value to us. In other words, we create Being by negating it 
from Other so that we may reclaim its value incrementally for ourselves. 
This is the process whereby our world is actualized.

You can now see why I didn't want to get involved in a discussion of 
negation. However, perhaps you now at least have a better idea of what it 
means and how I believe its dynamics affect our existential reality.

Sorry I couldn't empathize with your Middle Way analogy. Maybe it's just 
that I don't care much for carrot juice ;-].

Essentially yours,
Ham


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