[MD] Marsha's (s)OL

[Ham Priday]

Hey, Platt --


 > I'm unable to follow your argument. The vocabulary you use is
> foreign to me -- "contraiety,""differential otherness," "negated 
> entities,"
> for example. But I think we may agree on the permanence of existence.
> In your post to Willblake you wrote, "Essence is not 'being' but
> absolute 'IS-ness.'" To me the concept "IS-ness" means the same'
> as reality, existence, Quality.  Of course, like Bill Clinton, we can
> argue what the meaning of "is" is.

The vocabulary of Pirsig was foreign to me, also. Yet I managed to figure 
out what he was saying.
Why, I even learned what 'reification' meant.  I think you're being a bit 
coy here, Platt.  All the words I use are in the dictionary, unless 
explicitly defined.  And need I remind you that it's the concepts, not the 
words, which make a philosophy?

> As for the Buddhist negative "Not one, not two" to indicate the Absolute
> (the unpatterned as Marsha might say), it simply means to me
> experience that words cannot express -- for example, what I and others
> occasionally experience in the presence of great beauty. Rachmaniov's
> Third Piano Concerto comes to mind. I'm also interested in inexplicable
> coincidences that seem to mark turning points on my life's path, like
> learning of this site quite by accident from Bo many years ago. . But, I
> digress.

I suppose I shall henceforth have to express Essence as "the unpatterned" 
for you folks.  Incidentally, Absolute Essence is not an "experience"; it 
transcends experience.  What you experience "in the presence of great 
beauty" is differentiated value.  I do wish you'd extend your esthetic 
appreciation beyond that single Rachmaninov concerto.  (Give Liszt's choral 
works a hearing, for example, or enjoy a glass of chablis with a Schuman or 
Bruckner symphony.)   Inexplicable coincidences are not half the fun of 
discovering something new in the way of beauty.

Good luck and best regards,
Ham