[MD] The Physics of Metaphysics

[Ham Priday]

Hello Marsha --



> Ultimate Truth is not a form or entity.  Ultimate Truth is the lack of
> inherent existence, independence, autonomy, permanence and
> changelessness.   To the Buddhist, it is Emptiness or dependent
> arising.  To the MoQ'ist it is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable
> Quality.

Since "ultimate" is commonly understood to mean the final or quintessential 
nature of reality, I find it strange that one would conceive of the Ultimate 
as a "lack" or "emptiness".  I interpret the Buddhist concept of emptiness 
to connote "non-thingness" rather than a void or empty space.  Meister 
Eckhart, who was a Christian gnostic, referred to the Creator as "absolute 
fullness of being," and it is in the sense of that concept that I've posited 
an Absolute Source.

You see, Marsha, I view the physical universe (i.e., "beingness") as mostly 
nothingness.  In physicists' terms, the critical density of interstellar 
space has been calculated at about one hydrogen atom per cubic meter, or one 
ten-thousandth of an ounce in a volume the size of Earth.  I'd call that 
essentially pure emptiness, wouldn't you?.  So if, as I firmly believe, 
there is a source for "what IS", that source must be absolute "IS-ness", or 
what I call Essence.  (Incidentally, although the nature of Essence is 
unknowable, unlike Quality it is not dependent on a conscious agent.)

[Ham, previously]:
> Since you deny a primary source or Creator, I can only assume
> that you believe the universe created itself and that you are a late
> product of its evolution.

[Marsha]:
> If by evolution you mean 'change', I understand myself to be the flow
> of ever-changing, interdependent, impermanent organic, biological,
> social, and intellectual patterns.

Such a collection of ephemera does indeed suggest "emptiness"; yet there is 
no cause or progenitor implied.  Nothing comes from nothingness.  SOMETHING 
starts this process of change, dependence, differentiation, evolution, and 
patterning that we experience as the universe.  What is that something?  To 
say it is Quality infers that quality stands alone, independent of relations 
or differences, which it does not.  Quality can only be judged in relation 
to something which lacks quality.  Like the descriptor "Excellent", it needs 
a comparative referent by which to be measured.

> If one thinks that the 'incomplete knowledge' or 'illogical reasoning'
> is the Truth and never question such assumptions, than that seems a
> pretty good definition of ignorance.  It's not a pretty word, but I fully
> admit, pretty or not, that I am working with my own ignorance.
> (Be quiet, xacto!)

Truth is a chimera of objectivism.  Its meaning is either "what works 
consistently" or "what cannot be denied."   Since it has no conceptual 
value, I don't concern myself with it.  If ideas were bound by what can be 
proved as true, we would have no philosophy or intellectual thought.  I 
doubt very much that you're a person who rejects anything that can't be 
objectively proved, or who believes cosmological theories are developed by 
"ignorant" people.

> Maybe you "accept [a cognizant self]", but to others you have posited it, 
> asked them to
> assume its absence.

What would I want to demean my own Self by asking others to assume its 
absence?

> You might investigate whether there is within what you think to be
> the self or what you think to be external objects is changelessness,
> independence, and permanence?  You've already stated elsewhere
> that all is relative, that the ultimate truth that can be known is that 
> all
> is relative, and what is beyond the known is unknowable and undefinable.
> Yes?

The mode of experience is relative, temporal and changing.  Therefore I do 
not rely on the experienced world for metaphysical insight.  Factual, 
definitive (i.e, objective) knowledge is not my game.  (I give the 
scientists credit for that.)  As a philosopher, I am a conceptualist. 
Pirsig himself denounced the logical positivists, and most of what is 
discussed here is of a conceptual nature.

> Quality is a label for what is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable.

That label, I suppose, would include future events, the cause of evil, fuzzy 
math, the Big Bang, extra-terrestrial life, gods and goddesses, superstition 
and witchcraft.

Thanks for your explanations, Marsha.  I've enjoyed our dialogue.

Best wishes,
Ham