[MD] The Physics of Metaphysics

[MarshaV]

Greetings Ham,

This has been on my mind since this morning, so forgive me if I seem to respond too quickly.


On Apr 13, 2010, at 1:51 PM, Ham Priday wrote:

> 
> 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.  

I agree with you that the Buddhist's Emptiness does not represent 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.

I read somewhere that the choice of Ultimate over Absolute was to indicate there was nothing concrete being implied.  


>  
>  
> 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?.  

I think we have both agreed that emptiness, or voidness, does not represent Emptiness.    


> 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.  

I could not expect an individual mind to divide, define or know what is clearly beyond it.  


> (Incidentally, although the nature of Essence is unknowable, unlike Quality it is not dependent on a conscious agent.)

Conscious agent versus a self?  Maybe a consideration for another day.   


> [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";

That would be empty of independent existence.    


> yet there is no cause or progenitor implied.  

Conventionally both are implied, but no truth beyond their pragmatic 
existence.  


> 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.

Causation is the conventional point-of-view.  With Quality, if 
Quality is the same as Emptiness, there is interdependency which is 
non-causal.  

I think we must keep separate 'after experience judgments' from 'immediate 
experience value'.  Measurement pulls us into the realm of static patterns, 
or conventional reality.  


>> 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.

I think that this is the most important and most difficult subject of thought, 
and I am afraid that at any moment Buddha or Mr. Pirsig will arrive to wash 
my mouth out with soap for such impertinence.   


> 
>> 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?

I was referring to the original statement.  It's long gone, so never mind


>> 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.

What builds conceptual knowledge but patterns of experience?  What a game!!!    

I like the idea of approaching Ultimate Truth by discovering what is false, and I 
know I sound like broken record, but it is why a appreciate: not this, not that.  



>> 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.

Statically it would include all you mentioned, the dynamic is yet 
to be determined.   


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

I've enjoyed the dialogue too.  

> 
> Best wishes,
> Ham

And my best wishes to you.  


Marsha
 
 
 
___