[MD] Betterness - 4 levels of!

[Ham Priday]

Dear Mark --


> Using words as metaphors or fuzzy descriptors, has its limitations,
> I know.  I have tried to draw a picture of the double or secondary
> negation, and I have looked at math.  It is still something that doesn't
> quite click for me like it does for you.  The term finite beingness is
> interesting.  From the physical point of view I see this as being what
> I experience.  What this means in terms of possible being, I cannot say.
> "The negative image" points to the two intertwined objects in the
> symbol of Tao.  The symbols are images of each other defined by the
> boundary.  In the case of man for example, the boundary itself is a
> negative image, one of environmental pressure if you will.  We cannot
> go beyond that because it is a mold.  This can also be extended to
> the mind.  "As above so below" would be another approximation
> which would encompass a three dimensional boundary.

I empathize with your difficulty in comprehending my negation concept. 
Perhaps "negation" is the wrong term for nothingness derived from Essence. 
I'd rather concede that than remain incomprehensible.  So that we don't get 
hung up over terminology, let me try to express my ontology in a different 
way -- as a paradigm like those you've hinted at.  First, however, let me 
frankly express my reservations about the Metaphysics of Quality and its 
esteemed author.

I think Pirsig privately admired the "logical positivists" that he publicly 
condemned.  Otherwise, why would he scrupulously avoid positing anything 
that would suggest a Creator or a supernatural principle?  The Reality 
Pirsig deals with is strictly limited to what non-Pirsigians would call "the 
objective universe."  Even DQ, which he develops as his primary reality, is 
left undefined on the ground that "defining it would diminish the concept," 
and "everybody knows what Quality is."  Those conclusions lack credibility 
for me.  Pirsig wanted his philosophy to be acceptable to atheists, 
agnostics, and the New Age secularists of our postmodern era.  "Metaphysics" 
was simply a useful label by which to market his morality thesis in the 
semi-autobiographical novel format.

Mark, what I call "finitude" is the world we live in.  It's a fractionated, 
individuated, multi-level space/time world where creatures,
plants, and a diversity of things emerge, undergo cause-and-effect changes, 
and then return to the dust from whence they came.  Since natural phenomena 
are programmed by genetics and the forces of nature, it seems reasonable for 
the Darwinists to dismiss Intelligent Design is just an argument from 
ignorance, i.e., plugging a Creator into the gaps of scientific 
understanding.

But [to paraphrase a flyer just received from Human Events], as William 
Dembski and Jonathan Witt argue in their new book on the subject, the ID 
theory is based on a host of discoveries from biology to astronomy about 
what scientists DO know.  Whereas conclusions reached by the scientific 
method are dependable because they can be falsified, Darwinism is the 
lynchpin of philosophical materialism which is deeply entrenched in today's 
academic, legal and media establishment.  ID in contrast, follows the 
evidence wherever it leads -- even if it points to a Creator.  (For example, 
the authors show that it's mathematically impossible for even the simplest 
creature to evolve through "random variation", given the limits of time and 
space in the universe.)

Now, you may consider evolution "an illusion", an effect of Quality" or "the 
natural progression of a moral universe"; but such explanations don't 
account for the origin of this process or its reason for being.  Since every 
"being" is delineated or limited in space and time, it is fallacious to 
regard Being -- even in its "supreme" form -- as the ultimate reality.  And, 
since Quality and Morality simply don't exist without man's sensibility and 
reason, I conceptualize existence as that phase or mode of Essence whereby 
its Value is incrementally realized by a free agent.  My paradigm here is 
that of the individual self looking at its Absolute Source from the 
"outside", as it were, and creating an objective reality to represent the 
value realized.

Value-sensibility is as close to physical non-existence (nothingness) as any 
known entity can be; yet the Self is the cognitive locus of all that exists. 
That's why I put so much emphasis on "nothingness" as the antithesis of 
Essence, and why I attribute its actualization to a "negational" Source. 
Lastly, inasmuch as Sensibility and Value are both derived from Essence, it 
logically follows that their experiential counterparts are the individual's 
link to the Absolute.

Hope the above is a less confusing and somewhat more illuminating synopisis 
of Essentialism.

Cheers and warm regards,
Ham