[MD] Marsha's (s)OL

[plattholden at gmail.com]

Dear Ham, 

Always a pleasure to converse with you. 

On 16 Oct 2009 at 20:07, Ham Priday wrote:

> 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?

There are lots of words defined in the dictionary whose meanings are
obscure because they they are rarely used. I take it as a general 
principle
in writing that one prefer the simple to the complex, the familiar to the
strange. Thus, 'contraiety" might better be expressed as "opposed" or "in
opposition," "differential otherness" as "separate," and "negated entities" 
as
 -- well, I don't have an inkling of what that means. Maybe at death one
becomes a "negated entity?" As for ". . . it's the concepts not the words 
which
make a philosophy," unless the words have meaning for the reader the
philosophy and its concepts will remain forever on a shelf gathering 
dust. 

 
> > 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

Good idea. You'll probably reach more of us that way. 

> Incidentally, Absolute Essence is not an "experience"; it 
> transcends experience.  What you experience "in the presence of great 
> beauty" is differentiated value.

After I put the experience into words, the value I experience becomes 
hardened into the proverbial finger pointing at the moon. But, there's 
nothing "differentiated" about the value experience itself prior to 
thought.  

> 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.

Thanks for the suggestions. My tastes are less sophisticated than yours. 
I lean more toward Respighi's tone poems and Tchaikovsky's ballet 
music. Similarly, I'll take Norman Rockwell, Andre Wyeth and Winslow 
Homer over Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe. 
As my dear old Dad used to say, " 'There's no accounting for taste,' said 
the little old lady as she kissed the cow." As for "inexplicable 
coincidences," I find you and I meeting on this site to be one of my most 
pleasurable. It may not be beautiful, but for me it's been fun. As Pirsig 
might say, "DQ at work."

Warm regards,
Platt