[MD] a-theism and atheism

[rapsncows at fastmail.fm]

Ham,
I haven't yet grasped your thoughts, maybe a back and forth - or two -
will get me close,
Tim


> 
> [Ham] Quality to me means the worth or character of an observed person, thing,
> or 
> event.  This business of treating Quality as a noun is metaphysically 
> useless, unless you believe that quality can stand by itself, which it 
> can't.

[Tim]
This comes off very strong, and I don't know that you intended it that
way.  Maybe...

Anyway, when dealing with the MoQ, I think of Quality as the word
assigned to RMP's version of the thing which 'can stand by itself'.  For
my part, I liked that word because when thinking of my 'something' -
which can stand by itself - the first solid ground reached in unraveling
it was recognition of some 'a quality' --- though, as a caveat, this may
be too simple a picture if we are to come to a structure in metaphysics.
 Now, in its more highly developed form as presented in 'lila', where
quality = morality, I envision quality as an ordering principle.  I
don't know wherein ordering principles reside as things, but I am
thinking that they must be real things somehow.  Ham, I will tie into
your ordering principles where they come up.

> [Ham]  Like Value, Quality doesn't exist unless it is realized, and it
> is 
> always realized by the observing subject.  Unrealized value is an
> oxymoron. 
> The process of realizing value is called "sensibility".

[Tim]
can inorganic matter serve as observing subject?  I'm almost certain
that: yes; but I just want to make sure.  The reason is: there might
always be a lowly sensible subject observing, somehow, Essential
Qualities...

> [Ham]  In my
> epistemology, 
> the essence of selfness is value-sensibility, and it is experience that 
> constructs sensible value into the objects and events of our world.

[Tim]
just to be sure: I still don't see a reason why lowly inorganic matter,
and thus perhaps even intangible principles, are to be excluded from
this selfness (even though they do not stand by themselves).  Their
range of sensibility might be quite limited, but existent none-the-less.
 (Ham, please bear with me, I by no means intend to talk down by to you
through this simplicity and repetition.)

 
> > [Tim] Ham, the main thing I want to challenge: "...because it is delineated by
> > nothingness...".  For me, "nothing" has no place, because if it did, it
> > would be 'something'.  So, I don't really know what you mean here.  On
> > the other hand, I thought you captured this thought by saying "Essence
> > has no 'other'".  Anyway, an explanation might be helpful.
> >
> > I don't know if "essence" imprints any flavor to 'something'; I prefer
> > 'something', concrete but undifferentiated, but perhaps all 'essence'
> > implies is: essential.  Also, in my thinking, the 'essence' which "has
> > no other", might have to give something of itself for us to be here.
> > "Something is" seems to be, to the best of my capacity, true absolutely.
> 
> [Ham] I had this same problem with Mark, which is why I didn't mention
> "negation" 
> in my last post.  Perhaps, if I explain it simply enough, I can make a
> good 
> case for it.

[Tim]
thanks for the effort!  Even if I don't hear back from you it got us a
good way there...
 
> [Ham] In the traditional (religious) sense, we envisioned creation as something 
> "added to" the Creator.

[Tim]
yes, I know this is the common interpretation.  I wonder if it has been
bastardized.  The bible also says that we were created "in his image"; I
wonder if the ancients had a dual meaning for "in"...


> [Ham]  Thus, when God created man, suddenly there was a 
> new entity existing alongside the Creator.  We explained Adam as the son
> or 
> servant of God.  Likewise, every created thing is an "other" to God, and 
> they are all assumed to be "additions" to God's universe.
> 
> But, if the Creator is absolute (total "IS-ness", as Meister Eckhart 
> described it), there can be no other beside it.  What is already absolute 
> cannot be extended.  Cusanus recognized this logic in the 15th century. 
> He 
> defined God as the "Not-other".  "The first principle cannot be other, 
> either than an other or than nothing, and likewise is not opposed to 
> anything."  How, then, can the universe and everything in it come into 
> being?

[Tim]
yes, damned question!
 
> [Ham] Considered metaphysically, existence is constituted of Beingness, 
> Nothingness, and Sensibility.

[Tim]
Even having read through this a couple times I can't submit to the word
'nothingness'.  Furthermore, this 'beingness' if it were sensible (not
to be confused with 'sensible') - so it feels to me - might reach a
point where even it would want to have a reprieve from 'sensibility'. 
(perhaps this is getting too much into my psychology, but the idea of
eternity seems like hell no matter what.  Death seems to be the just
solution.  I would feel really terrible if the unmoved mover couldn't
attain to this repose.)  Anyway, this is perhaps why I like to stop my
metaphysics at 'something-is' (even if that is a deathlike repose very
close to, but not quite, nothingness).

might sensibility itself be a negate of beingness?  (I'm not sure if
I've used the word 'negate' well as I type.)

also, within my metaphysics there is place for a word which seems to me
to be very close to 'nothingness'.  I won't address the common usage,
which is where I like it best, but metaphysically I use the word
'impossible'.  In fact, I would say that beingness (something-is) is
bounded by the impossible.  Something-is cannot cease.  But it may be
possible to find a repose in which it itself is (at least temporarily)
...


> [Ham]  Nothingness is a negate which doesn't
> exist 
> but is still functional in the triad.

[Tim]
I would say: well, I'm not quite sure what I would say - I'm still
trying to work that out.  Something-is is bounded by the impossible. 
There is no 'impossible' as such, yet the boundary is real, and the
concept is real.  I am moving too quickly here, I know --- but I can't
resist hinting at what I know beyond my nose.

> [Ham]  According to the law of 
> contradiction, if one element of the triad stands alone, the other two 
> elements are in contradictory identity.

[Tim]
I would like to look at this in detail.  Sorry for my lack.  What
happens if beingness stands alone?  Is this the repose I was after?

> [Ham]  Thus, if Nothingness is negated 
> from Essence, Beingness and Sensibility are left as the contradictory 
> "essents".   This forms a subject/object duality in which Being is made 
> sensible as the negated subject's awareness of an objective essent  - 
> "otherness".

[Tim]
Yikes!!!  This last sentence!  Help even more - please!

> 
> [Ham] In other words, you and your reality are negated (i.e., excluded) from
> the 
> absolute source.

[Tim]
This seems only to confuse me more!

>From my perspective (if we can't agree on intelligent we can at least
perhaps agree on conscious and 'sensible' - not to be confused with
sensible), something-is would have to maintain, at minimum, the capacity
for the state of deathlike repose.  Whether that minimum is ever
actually attainable will forever be in the realm of speculation. 
However, if I admit it as conceivable (even if it is not, technically),
this reality I know, all unraveled and what not, I can attribute to the
willful refraining from that deathlike state of repose.  Similarly, if I
look at something-is comming out of such a state, like a bear from
winter hibernation, I can, perhaps, imagine something-is bringing about
what is possible within possible, even though that is to negate certain
other possibilities (prime among them being deathlike state of repose). 
This is to say, that if anything beyond the deathlike repose is truly
possible, not all possibilities can be had at once - in the same place,
at the same time, in the same respect, without contradiction.  So there
is sacrifice, choice, a self-imposed boundary within the possible.

> [Ham]  From the perspective of Essence, anything that "exists"
> is 
> transitory and finite, and finitude has no place in the Absolute.

[Tim]
You see that I am a big fan of finitude.  But I wonder if we still might
be okay from the perspective of essence, and regarding "exists" and "in
the absolute"...

> [Ham]  That's 
> why some here say that the physical universe is "illusory".  Now, Mr.
> Pirsig 
> has tried to circumvent this paradox by positing Quality (DQ) as the
> primary 
> source which divides into "static patterns' that we recognize as subjects 
> and objects.  The power to divide is assumed to be the "dynamic nature"
> of 
> Quality.  But that still leaves us with an illusion without an ontogeny
> or 
> cause.

[Tim]
you say, "the power to divide..."  I like that language (and I think you
prefer it to addition), though I don't think RMP himself ever used it
(at least not in ZAMM of Lila).  I like this last sentence of yours too:
well said.

> 
> [Ham] The rationale for negation is quite simply that any created thing is a 
> lesser entity than the whole.

[Tim]
hmmm...  so, as I see it, it is this 'WHOLE' which is the real illusion.
 The 'WHOLE' is merely a set of possibilities, some of which are
mutually exclusive.  The 'WHOLE' can never be attained, not even by the
whole.  But by limiting itself, it is the greater.  I think that
morality works similarly for us humans.  If we limit ourselves, if we
choose not to be avaricious murderers, we are not lesser, but greater. 
It is the choice of boundaries, but the choosing of a boundary cannot be
avoided: which is greatest, which is best?  In this, I think that we are
made in the image of _______________ .

> [Ham]  Since the objects of creation are
> secondary 
> and inferior to the undifferentiated whole, they can arise only by
> negation 
> of the whole.

[Tim]
again, I would say that the 'WHOLE' is the illusion.  It must always be
negated.  Or, the 'WHOLE' is impossible.  As such, it is rather the
undifferentiated whole which is inferior to the differentiated whole. 
possibilities open up within boundaries.

> [Ham] There is but one plausible hypothesis to account for the 
> creation of a dynamic, multiplistic universe from a constant, monistic 
> source: Essence is negational.

[Tim]
I think we have reached the same conclusion!  Ney, foundation!

> [Ham]  Because Essence is absolute and
> ubiquitous, 
> there is no other within or beside it.

[Tim]
hmmmm... two things.

first, if I replace "Essence" with "Quality", would RMP denounce it?

second, while I agree with this conservation of _____________ 
(something-is), within the bounds of the possible, I think that there
very much is the option for "other".

> [Ham]  Therefore, in order to create an 
> other, it "invents" one by negation.

[Tim]
it is this process of 'invents' that I have been considering taking a
real hard look at.  If we can say how, does a structure, or a physics
fall out?

> [Ham]  Like the mountain climber who has 
> ascended to the highest summit and for whom further progress can only be 
> descent, Absolute Essence is the only entity that creates by "exclusion".

[Tim]
Now, more than ever, I think that metaphysics is rather a descent into
the abyss.  progress isn't the coming down, but the getting out - of the
ultimate deathlike state of repose.

 
> [Ham] The potential for actualizing the appearance of contrariety (difference)
> is 
> innate in its Oneness.

[Tim]
I might say that Oneness itself is a starting in the middle, and, as
such a stand alone, in the middle, is as close as one can come to true
contradiction.  Am I?  Or, Am I not?  When even then contrariety
appears...  yes, the potential for difference is innate.

> [Ham]  And because negation is the potentiality of
> Essence, 
> which itself is primary, the "cause" and the "source" of creation are
> one.

[Tim]
very nice.

 
> > [Tim] This guy that Mark suggested, J. Kaipayil (relationalism.org), suggests
> > that reality is fundamentally unitary and plural at the same time.  I
> > think we might all be in agreement here.  Perhaps it is that I am trying
> > to see why it MUST BE plural by focussing on the aspect of unity, while
> > you, might, maybe?, bee thinking of the simplest plural: as essence
> > (essential).  If this is so, I like the terminology - from that
> > perspective.
> 
> [Ham] Tim, I don't see how aything can be both unitary and pluralistic at ANY 
> time.

[Tim]
well, I don't know if this is important now or not.  But for instance,
the human body is one.  And while you can lop of an arm or a leg, you
can't do without certain other organs which are in themselves one too. 
I'm sure you must have been getting at something more fundamental
though.  So, if we look at the words that we have used for getting at a
creation: you liked 'negate', I liked 'bound', then there were 'divide',
and etc., such a process might not be simple, but might inherently be
composed of at least two distinct negations, boundings, divisions, etc. 
Further, and as the capstone, we all are individuals, plural, but united
in This whole.  But again, I don't know if this is an aside right now.

> [Ham]  But I CAN see how Difference can derive plurality from unity, if
> we 
> allow that Existence is a different mode of reality than Essence.  If, by 
> negating nothingness, Essence causes a split or cleavage to appear to an 
> "other", we have a metaphysical basis for creation.

[Tim]
haha! you crackpot you.  you do have these crackpot feelings like me:
thanks for admitting so much.  Anyway, you know I'm with you, and I
think we are on its trail...  But, I don't know if we can understand the
process of differentiation, or if it is supposed to be taken on faith. 
My guess is that a pretty good explanation will be attained by somebody,
sometime; and that there will still be ample room for faith.

And I still really don't know if it would be a high quality thing to
work towards now.  But I am here, guilty if I'm guilty.

> [Ham]  I maintain that the 
> cosmic split (division) is between Sensibility and Otherness, that 
> Sensibility/Otherness is the primary dichotomy from which all
> differentiated 
> phenomena (essents) are made aware.

[Tim]
So my first split was possible/impossible, yours is
sensibility/otherness, RMP's is static/dynamic.  I came here with the
contention that static/dynamic was probably too simple.  At the same
time I though possible/impossible was too simple. Yours seems too
complex to me: that is, it is too complex to be called 'first' (in the
way that I or RMP might have used the word 'first').  But I think that
you are on to something in that the First division must be complex.  I
should shut up about this now - for the time being at least.
> 

> > [Tim] I came here having a problem with pirsig's 'Quality'.  For one, it
> > seemed too simple to produce contradiction, theoretically.  For two,
> > even though he asserted that quality was synonymous with morality,
> > we have no way of determining these things objectively, so, for
> > instance, when there is contradiction in real life, one can side with
> > what some would call high quality activities, while others call them
> > criminal, sinful, etc.: criminal syndicates, corrupt schemes,
> > assassinations, etc. and etc.  The levels don't provide a means to
> > distinguish immoral from moral quality, but I won't rehash this.
> 
> [Ham] Morality is a wholly separate issue, which I'll be happy to explore with
> you 
> at a later time.

[Tim]
yes, another time - hopefuully.  But, just to be precise, I don't see it
as wholly separate, just at the other end of the spectrum.

> [Ham]  Suffice it to say here that the only essential
> attributes 
> of the Absolute Source that we can know are Sensibility and Value.

[Tim]
This is a sweeping statement, but I have nothing to say against it (at
least not as of yet).  Still, it seems that this is not at all
antipathetic with the idea of the evolution (of the unitary - and plural
- whole) towards betterness.

> [Ham]  Our 
> entire finite world is an intellectual construct of these attributes.

[Tim]
but what about material?

how does it come in?!

> 
> [Ham] Has my creation hypothesis helped you to understand the function of 
> negation, Tim?

[Tim]
lol.  I think you'll have to be the judge of that.  I have been mapping
it onto my idea of 'bounding'.  They seem to line up quite a bit...  I
would like to know what you say though, for sure.

> [Ham]   Do you at least see that because the subjective self
> cannot 
> be quantified, localized, or directly observed, it is not an "existent"
> but 
> a "negate" or nothingness that is totally dependent on the otherness 
> (beingness) which sustains it?

[Tim]
while I have concluded (or at least all-but-concluded) that I myself
cannot quantify, locate, or directly observe myself, I have, at the same
time, concluded (or all-but-concluded) that I must exist.  Somehow there
is some subject which is sensible of me, and values me, distinguishes me
to the extent that I can be.  I, at the same time, see that I am
dependent on the other (though I reserve the right to wonder about
'totally'), perhaps more specifically, the boundary there-between - and
perhaps I would be able to claim the boundary, though not exclusively. 
(I have been toying with this idea that the boundary is just as much
mine as the others, if this were so, there would be, perhaps, 5:
material I, mental I, faithful I, I-as-idea, and boundary I - while the
faithful I serves as the tuner of the mental and the material, the
boundary I might serve as the tuner between the faithful I and the
I-as-idea.  But now I might just be off my rocker entirely.)

Furthermore, as I view the WHOLE as the illusion, I see no problem
viewing this particular whole as being as dependent upon me as I am upon
it!  This possible whole would be impossible without me.

> 
> Appreciate your interest,
> Ham

likewise!  If it were not for you, and the others here who have pushed
me, I would have progressed very little.  Whether this 'progress' is up
or down is yet to be determined, hahaha.

Tim

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