[MD] a-theism and atheism

[Ham Priday]

Hey, Tim --


> Ham,
> should I still be waiting for your response to my long email?  I have
> passed up a number of opportunities to try to bridge the gap
> between us in waiting, may be I should not hold back?

You're referring to the lengthy 11/15 post, of course,which I promised to 
get back to you on.  Sorry, I got caught up in other things.  I was talking 
about existence being a negation of the Absolute Source.

I think this is where we left off:

> 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 coming 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.

Essence is not a thing, so the term "something-is" is problematic for me. 
The "All-is" would be better, or Eckhart's "IS-ness".

I suppose it's because we have never experienced the Absolute that we liken 
it to a "deathlike state", if not total nothingness.  However, what Cusa and 
Eckhart envisioned was the exact opposite.  As difficult as it is to 
imagine, the source of all sensibility and life logically has to be "the 
fullness of being", not a void or absence of it.  I purposely avoid using 
the term "being" in my thesis because its always associated with a finite 
entity, which Essence is not.  (Existentialists fell short of understanding 
this concept and wrote about "becoming" in much the same way Pirsig talks 
about Quality moving to betterness.)

> 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 _______________ .
>
> 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.

Sorry to disappoint you again, Tim, but the term "whole", as in "totality of 
things", cannot apply to the primary source.  Essence is neither Being nor 
an aggregate of beings.  Its nature is such that we can not fathom it.  As 
I've said before, we can only sense its Value.  You are correct that the 
'whole' can never be attained (it is eternal), but wrong in concluding that 
"by limiting itself, it is the greater."  I don't see negation as a 
limitation, but as an extension of Absolute Sensibility.  Now, I know I've 
denied that the absolute can be extended; but think of negation as 
entertaining a thought or idea that has no basis in your reality.  Call it 
"imagining", if you will.  Does what you imagine in any way extend your 
being in the world?  Neither does negation limit or diminish the absolute 
nature of Essence.  Instead, it "invents" an other that is endowed with the 
individualized sensibility to realize essential value independently of its 
absolute source.  By this capacity, the negate or self actualizes its own 
reality in accordance "in the image of" or by virtue of the cosmic design of 
the source.

> I think we have reached the same conclusion!  Ney, foundation!
>
> 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?

I'm afraid this concept is beyond the scope of physics, Tim.  A logician 
might develop some kind of equation to express the concept (as I'd hoped 
Mark might come up with), but it has to become conceptualized first, and 
unfortunately that requires language.

> 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 focusing 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 anything 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.
>
> 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 thought
> 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.

[Ham, previously]:
> 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?!

Materiality, substance, and the objects that exhibit these properties are 
all experiential constructs of our value-sensibility.  Even the atoms and 
molecules we intellectualize as "real", as well as the physical laws that 
govern their behavior, are second-hand derivatives of essence-value.
]
> 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.

Well. at least you've given it some thought.  And, for the most part, it 
would appear that your conclusions are appropriate and meaningful.  I'm 
curious, though, as to what you meant by this statement:

> 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'.

> Can you tell me the "common word" you would have used?

Have I covered enough of your long post for this session, Tim?

I like the way you think, and I believe it's paying off in terms of 
understanding.
But as Platt always says, "of course I could be wrong."

Essentially yours,
Ham