[MD] Marsha's (s)OL

[MarshaV]

Hi Ham,

Thanks for your explanation, but for me experience is as transcendental as I
need. There is something in some of your writing that seems familiar,
though, something that I will continue to pursue.  


Marsha 



   
 _____________

"He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has."  
  (Friedrich von Schiller)  
  
 
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Ham Priday
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 6:42 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Marsha's (s)OL

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


Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/