[MD] Hot stoves and those who sit on them

[Ham Priday]

Hey, Andre --


> Ham (who has only a quarrel with Andre):
>
>> Proprietary sensibility and individual awareness are
>> synonomous. The reason I defined the "nature" of awareness as proprietary 
>> was to make the point that conscious awareness is unique to the 
>> individual.
>> It is the Self, not the universe or an extracorporeal level, who is aware 
>> of (experiences) objects and senses their value
>
> Andre, still quarreling:
>
> Look Ham, I do not understand how you can say
> on the one hand that everything is related (I call this
> due to the idea of co-dependent arising) and then say:
> except the knower...some sort of individual 'Self'.
> Where does the 'knower' come from then? From
> outside these relationships?

What you must first understand is that there are two kinds of "reality": the 
one we experience as "things in process and relation" and call existence, 
and the Absolute which is not differentiated into things but is the primary 
source or potentiality of all difference.  Difference is the beginning of 
Creation.

The appearance of "being" (the existential world) is what I call the 
"negative potentiality" of Essence.  It is actualized by the negation of 
nothingness which divides (differentiates) Sensibility from Beingness (both 
of which are aspects of Absolute Essence.)  This creates a dichotomy of two 
mutually exclusive "essents" or contingencies.  The Knower (sensible self) 
is derived from Sensibility, while Otherness (existential being) is derived 
from primary Beingness (i.e., Kant's noumenon).

The world of appearances is the space/time mode of Existence in which 
Sensibility is individuated as the subjective self in relation to objective 
otherness.  The "nature" of this relationship is "valuistic"; that is, the 
sensible self experiences Value as a hegemony of representative objects and 
events in time and space.  Through experience the individual brings Value 
into existential reality as an ordered, relational system of things in 
process.  Note that the "things", "objects", "events", and "relations" are 
phenomenal, whereas Sensibility, Beingness, and Value are primary (e.g., 
essential or "real") aspects of the Absolute Source.

> The MoQ denies any existence of a self that is independent
> of inorganic, organic, social and intellectual patterns. 'There is no
> 'self' that contains these patterns. These patterns contain the self.
> This denial agrees with both religious mysticism and scientific
> knowledge. In Zen,there is reference to 'big self' and 'small self'. Small 
> self is the patterns. Big self is Dynamic Quality.'
> (Annot.29, LC)

The self is "dependent" only on the primary Sensibility/Otherness dichotomy 
I have defined above.  Inorganic, biological, social, and intellectual are 
ways of categorizing experiential existence.  So is the precept of 
"patterns" and "evolution".  (I do not claim to follow the precepts of 
Buddhism or Science in my ontogeny.)

> You are placing the individual, the 'self' the 'I' as the central reality. 
> And, as you know, this runs counter to the MoQ.

No, Andre.  There is only One Absolute Reality.  The phenomenal world is 
only the "appearance of otherness" as a differentiated system of 
objectivized values.  We, as individuated selves, create this system 
experientially.  In that sense, we are "free agents".  But we do not create 
our selves, and nothing is "independent" of the Sensibility/Otherness 
dichotomy which is the negational mode of Essence.

Thanks for giving me another opportunity to explain (hopefully also to 
clarify) the creation process as I envision it.

Best regards,
Ham