[MD] Thus spoke Lila

[rapsncows at fastmail.fm]

Mark, Ham
can I butt in again?

Ham, I have finally finished reading your thesis.

[from the conversation between Mark and Ham - the 4 most recent
exchanges, reverse order]

[Ham wrote to Mark - least recently]

[Ham]
On the positive side, and perhaps partly due to the contributions of 
free-thinkers such as yourself, I see more tolerance toward ideas that 
complement and shape, rather than attack, Pirsig's valuistic insights. 
Instead of a predisposition against the spiritual and aesthetic aspects
of Quality (Value), Tim, John, Platt, Craig and others are increasingly 
accepting the idea that value realization is psycho-emotional as well as 
intellectual.  This trend is as helpful to me as it is to RMP.

[Tim]
Thanks Ham, this is the first time my name has appeared amongst a list
of other MoQers.  But, I haven't spoken much with most others outside of
this list (implied conversants included).  So... this leads me to my
first question.  Ham, you had said:

"[Ham] The greatest impediment I face is the anti-spiritual bias of a
society that is in rebellion against religion and confuses Essence with
theism."

Is this the greatest impediment you face here in MD, or is this your
greatest impediment in greater society?  ANyway, I seem to have come to
a different conclusion, but...

Next,

[Ham]
The critical point, however, is that conscious awareness (sensibility)
and the intellect by which it functions are proprietary to the
individual self, an epistemology which Pirsigians refuse to acknowledge.

[Tim]
I think you could sell a lot of people on this idea, in the greater
society, even if you could not sell them on essentialism.  For my part,
I do not see why essence is essential to this conclusion.

I continue, with liberal snipping:

[Mark had said]
For me, to say it [the ineffable, the absolute, essence, Quality, etc.]
is undefinable, means that we haven't tried hard enough yet.  We make up
Quality, and then can't define it (yet).

[Ham replied]
Except for "defining the ineffable", which is--and I believe MUST
remain--beyond man's capacity, what you say is very true.

[Tim]
Ham, the problem I see for your thesis, here, in the MoQ, is exactly
this disposition of Mark's, and mine, that we prefer an undefined
fundament to one that is burdened by what could be a false definition. 
The thing I see with your 'essence' is that you do not keep it ill
defined, but burden it with your conceptions of 'oneness', and absolute,
etc.  For instance, from your thesis:

"Here, then, is an original theory of creation that will support a
dynamic space/time system without violating the metaphysically
stipulated "uniform, unchanging and limitless" Source.” --- we are not
so happy to submit to a fundament that is 'uniform', 'unchanging' and
'limitless'.  We prefer RMP's evasion of such defining traits!

also, “But Essence is perfect Oneness, which means that it is free of
patterns or demarcations of any kind”

and, “from the Essential perspective there is no past or future..."

and, “creation is a timeless constant”

so, it seems we can get to: "The critical point, however, is that
conscious awareness (sensibility) and the intellect by which it
functions are proprietary to the individual self" without (recognizing)
a '..."uniform, unchanging, and limitless" Source' called 'essence'.  I
wonder if you could convince Marsha to incorporate 'proprietary' into
her definition of self?  I think so: '...interdependent, proprietary,
impermanent..."

$$$

Then, Mark, in speaking to you:

"[Mark] Everything in our creation has to start with an assumption. You
have made one with Absolute Essence."

To which you replied,

"[Ham] For as long as I can remember, I've sought a plausible theory
(ontology) of existence that would satisfy me.  [SNIP]  I hit upon Value
first, at about the time I became acquainted with Pirsig's Quality.  The
ontogeny of differentiation came later. [SNIP] but the overall cosmology
is irrevocable insofar as my own beliefs are concerned."

[Tim]
the irrevocability of your belief in your cosmology comes through.  I
hope you will consider revoking it!  Or, at least opening up to the
possibility that 'essence' is not as you imagine it.  Or, if it must be
so, we should be able to find some proof: perhaps a physics will fall
out.  Or, if not, to hold to your understanding is an act of faithe, to
which I might suggest you admit up front.  And it is not just faithe
regarding the aspects of 'oneness', but regarding the implications upon
death:

“Death is a cosmic event, merciful in its completeness, and capable of
redeeming Desire in the sense that (for want of a better analogy) the
"lover" and the "love object" are reunited in what must approximate a
divine consummation.”

anyway, that was a side point, the main point here is regarding your
ontogeny of differentiation; And this in relation to Mark's comment
about your - one - assumption.  You have made more than one, despite the
word-play.  The other!: nothingness.  From your thesis: “What Essence
actualizes as an "other" is its absolute antonym.”  and: “As the
antithetical essent, only nothingness shares the absolute and undivided
status of Essence.”  (Ham, keep in mind that I will propose that
'impossibility' fits the bill - and, while you have said before that you
do not recognize a possible/impossible divide, I will show you that you
do - I think)

Mark, I would suggest that you would understand Ham most properly if you
would consider his 'nothingness' as akin to 'Quality' (Quality as the
source of DQ/SQ).  What do you think Ham?  As I understand, Ham is
arguing that Quality cannot be the fundament, that essence must be the
fundament, and so there will be no cognate for 'essence' within the MoQ.
 As I understand it, Ham is arguing that there must be something which
gives rise to Quality, that RMP did not go back to the Source in
postulating Quality as the Source.  As such, I think that the most
comprehensible relation is to view Ham's 'nothingness' as akin to RMP's
'Quality'!  Mark, I think you will like this even more if you look at
your thoughts regarding separation and differentiation, etc.

And, just to close things out and offer up my perspective, when I was
younger I could have said, similarly, "For as long as I can remember,
I've sought the fundamental truth of philosophy - that would satisfy
me."  That truth, which, perhaps more importantly, satisfies me because
it must always be true: something is.  Ham, even if there were no
'essence' behind it, your 'nothingness' would fit that bill!  Which is
why (one reason amongst many) I hate that choice of words.

$$$$$$$$$$$

[Mark replied to Ham]

[Mark]
I will work on your Value being my Quality, to see if I understand you
better.

[Tim]
I do not repent of my suggestion that Ham's 'nothingness' be considered
akin with RMP's 'Quality'.  But, since Quality is simple and Ham's
essentialism becomes triune, 'Quality' will have to take on other
functions too.  And, of course, these models are not quite congruent.

$$$$$$$$$$$

[Ham replied to Mark]

[Ham]
I would assume that Truth, even if we knew it, would be inexpressible.
Absolute Truth is like absolute Value.  There is but one Absolute, and
we can't express it as Value or Truth.  We can only realize its
differentiated attributes.

[Tim]
Ham, you have already agreed, previously, that something is.  Perhaps I
flew in under the radar, but this is my fundament.  I think that it is
expressible.  I think that this is TRUTH, eternally.  But, such a TRUTH
need not conform to your constraints for a source, namely that it be
'unchanging' - or, rather, its 'something is'-ness can be conserved as
unchanging, even if it is permitted to change differentially.  I know
this doesn't appeal to you, perhaps for good reason, but I do not think
that you have proven such a reason; if you are justified, it is by
faithe!  I encourage you at least to open up to the possibility that the
absolute fundament can be eternal in potential, but finite in
actualization.  I'll get to this...

[Ham]
There is nothing "static" about the quality (value) we experience as 
essents.  As I mentioned before, it is the dynamic nature of human 
sensibility that enables us to objectify Value.  'Essent-value' is 
experiential; that is, it's the incrementally perceived value of essents 
evolving and developing over time.  What is "ingrained" in us is 
value-sensibility (what Pirsig calls "pre-intellectual experience"). 
Except that each and every experience is perceived to have its own value
relative to everything else.  Rather than "matter interacting with
matter," it's Essential Value differentiated by experience to create
finite relational 'beingness' (essents).

[Tim]
You see Ham, I don't see why I need your 'essence' for any of this.  I
will tell you how my ideas of the absolute fit in now.  I have said that
my fundament is in TRUTH: something is.  This arises from the
realization that 'nothing' is impossible; something must be - even if it
is very close to nothing.  This is what comes to ME, when *I*, try to
imagine the absolute.  There is a concept of impossible, and possible. 
My absolute is bounded by the impossible like your 'nothingness' is
evolved by the negation of essence.  If you'll remember I got frustrated
before when I made this connection.  For me, I am fine leaving what lies
behind the veil of the impossible alone.  BUt if there is a greater
'essence' there behind, ... ?  If there is a God, I don't so much care. 
Why should it be any different with essence?  If your essence must be I
want to be led there (a physics); if not something-is should suffice
till then.  You see, Ham, I can be real confident in this TRUTHFUL
fundament, but one of an "uniform, unchanging and limitless" Source
seems like a limitation and a burden on my spirituality.  This is
especially so if I have to, somehow, traverse a barrier of
'impossibility'.

Anyway, you said before that you did not have recourse to a
impossible-possible divide, but, from your thesis:

“Possibility and actuality are co-dependent in existence but coincide
in the non-contradictory Source”

And!, “If the possibility of contradictory otherness is always present
in Essence and becomes actualized when there is an awareness to
experience it, then it is this actualization that we call existence.”
--- so, while I have a something-is which I have burdened no further
than ... you have a presumption of 'the possibility of contradictory
otherness is always present in Essence'!  IF I want, it should not
bother you if I replace 'Essence' with 'something-is', right? 
Furthermore, if your 'nothingness' fits this description "only
nothingness shares the absolute and undivided status of Essence", why
wouldn't the possibility of contradictory otherness be always present in
'nothingness' too?  I guess I am saying that I really don't get how you
can hold to your idea of 'nothingness', and hold that it still does not
counterfeit the fact that your 'essence' is to have no other.  Either
way, you have the idea of 'possibility' within your idea of essence!

$$$

[Ham]
The individual self is nothing but sensibility in want of Value. 
Proprietary selfness is a negation of Essence.  That's why the term
'negate' is appropriate.  Selfness is divided from Essence by
nothingness, just as Sensibility is divided from Beingness by
nothingness.  The nothingness that separates all existents is the common
denominator of the differentiated world.  I don't know how to formulate
this as an equation, except to say that Nothingness represents the
primary negation whereby Sensibility is "excluded" from Essence to
actualize existence.

[Tim]
First, Ham, I had asked you where I would fit in in essentialism, but
there was no treatment of 'will' within your thesis!!!  I can imply some
meaning for 'choice', regarding how I predispose my sensibility: but,
you tell me, is that okay?  But sensibility is only half the story of my
self as far as I see.  And I don't know what is primary and what is
secondary.  Or if they arise simultaneously in a complex way. 
Sensibility without will would be torture!  In fact, that is how torture
works.  It seems to me that considering the self purely as negate is to
preclude a mechanism for will.  How do we get a willful self out of
essentialism, Ham?  So, this is the second of my two big contention with
you (the first being the burdens you have assumed for, and placed on,
the absolute): what is the mechanism of will?

Next, Mark, see now what it looks like if we replace 'nothingness' with
'Quality', and 'essence' with 'either: an impossibility, or that which
is veiled by an impossibility' - which I'll call 'a veiled
impossibility' here: 

Proprietary selfness is a negation of *a veiled impossibility*.  That's
why the term 'negate' is appropriate.  Selfness is divided from *a
veiled impossibility* by *Quality*, just as Sensibility is divided from
Beingness by *Quality*. The *Quality* that separates all existents is
the common denominator of the differentiated world.  I don't know how to
formulate this as an equation, except to say that *Quality* represents
the primary negation whereby Sensibility is "excluded" from *a veiled
impossibility* to actualize existence.

Is this terrible in your sight, Ham?

$$$$$$$$$$

[Mark replied to Ham - most recently]

[Mark]
Is there another word for Nothingness?   Because where this takes me
logically is that nothing is separating.  Can't we just be something
separated from something else?  Right now I am imagining a veil or
something.

[Tim]
ehhhh?  No?

$$$

[Ham said]
By the same token, if man had access to absolute Truth, he would be
denied the capacity to exercise the free choice necessary to become a
moral creature.

[Mark replied]
I do not like the notion of Absolute Truth as something that really
exists, unless everything is absolute Truth, and that would make it
meaningless since there would not be any falseness.

[Tim]
Ham, I have used the words maximal and minimal to describe the
difference between your and my conception of the absolute.  My idea of
absolute truth is not one that encompasses everywhere, but rather one
that sets the fundament for further growth.  Thus 'something-is' can be
the absoulute fundament of truth, yet leave open the fullness of truth
in our highly complex, differential, existence so as not to preclude the
freedom of choice necessary to become a moral creature. Mark, if
something-is functions as an Absolute truth, I don't know if I need to
address 'as something that really exists', but even a 'falseness' will
have this fundament too.  A falseness, to be a real falseness, could not
be so false as to both not be and to be (a falseness) simultaneously.

$$$

[Mark]
Well, I don't know if I have changed my attitude about Quality.
Perhaps I have, and that would mean growth.  So, at this point I still
see Quality as that which separates, but I am willing to say that it
is not everything, because as you say, something has to realize that
separation.

[Tim]
I will point out one more time that Ham's 'nothingness' is what
separates for him...  And I will leave off without mentioning ...

[Mark]
How does the relativity of Value fit into your ontology?  That is, is
there any significance to our ability to know what is better?  Is that
betterness part of our make up, or does it come from outside and is
presented to us?  Why do we differentiate differently?  Hope my
question is clear, 'cause it doesn't seem to make much sense to me the
way I have written it.  Anyway, if not, I'll think of another way to
ask the question.

[Tim]
I thought this was a great question, so I ask it too Ham: why do we
differentiate differently?!

Ham,
I have a bunch of random comments that I could make on your thesis
too...  Mainly, I guess I think your physics of negation is a promising
track, but I don't see why I have to envision an absolute essence that
is the culmination of all possibility and all actuality simultaneously. 
And I don't like my proprietary self being a will-less sensible negate. 
Thanks for your thesis though!  I don't want to be ungrateful.

Mark, Ham,
I look forward to hearing from you,
Tim
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