[MD] a-theism and atheism

[rapsncows at fastmail.fm]

Ham,
so...
I'm down to keep picking at this if you are.  Of course I understand
that you might not.

Like I said, I think that I have misled myself into thinking that I had
been understanding you: essence, absolute, etc.

So, let me kinda' start over, the grand picture:

1) I have been summoned into this life without my permission ---
everything thereafter seems to hinge on my ability to be an I.  I don't
know what this 'I' is.  I don't know where it resides.  But continually,
and without fail, I am reminded that I should faithfully submit to this
state of affairs. "I am" is a meaningful statement.  [now, I have been
wondering, based on recent posts, if I loose some people even here; but,
Ham, I don't loose you, do I?  When I say, 'Ham', that is a meaningful
statement, is it not?]

2) Next, this I, in which I (must) have faith but in which I do (must)
not have 'know', exists (that is, it is provided some hard protection
from incidental incursion by another I --- even if that i is a real
sub-part of I).  I exist; something which is other-than-I exists; there
is a meaningful (impenetrable) distinction between the two (or more). 
There is a 'reality'.

Now, I don't know what I am supposed to do with anyone who wont accept
these.  If it is the first...  But if it is the second, I guess that
means war.  It seems that we share this reality, between (Mark) us.

3) amongst this get-up there is change.  But I, somehow, remain I.
4) not only is reality, existence, meaningful, but change too is (seems
to be) meaningful outside of me.

Now, I realize that one might view change as either internal or external
to reality, but, at least for now, let us see if we can agree that both
'reality' and 'change' are meaningful characteristics: do we?  [I might
have guessed that you, Ham, would not like change; that you might insist
that it is a phantom of essence, but isn't that to make a 'thing' of
essence?  I'm getting ahead of myself here!]

5) If we have agreed this far, then we must conclude that (every) I am
(is) responsible for choice.

It is my understanding that everyone has submitted to this, and everyone
is struggling as he will to choose.  Here, in this forum, we like to
talk about our manner of choosing.  We believe that we can 'mold' ---
mold what?  the meaningful (dynamic pattern) 'I' that persists reality
with change.

Anyway, I thought we were all united in this condition, from richest to
poorest, etc.

I thought the goal of the MoQ was to help I's make decisions.  I thought
this was the goal of all metaphysics and all theisms.  Anyway, I don't
see how this foundation can be ignored.  Unless a one wants to deny his
own self...  Anyway, I think that that is a small leap, the smallest in
fact (it seems a much larger leap of faith to faithe that the one
faithe-ing is not-one...).  And further, anyone who will deny that he is
a one cannot be involved in anything higher (can he be involved with
anything at all?) in life, I am thinking about morality here.  Anyone
who will not admit that he is a one, can have no ground for perspective
on what goes on between ones; he can't even claim to deserve respect for
his life!

------- I suggested I would have to go back to square one, remember
--------

So... doesn't every metaphysics have to respect this?  At least as an
option?  That is, if a metaphysics denies this option, can't we throw it
in the waste-bin?

I can understand if a metaphysics reaches up into the sky, or down into
the abyss, but this humble foundation I cannot see being lost.  I cannot
see the foundation being in the sky, or in the abyss.  For me, if I had
not considered all this before, I would still look at the simplicity of
my rendering and think: okay, this is a place to start.

again: I say: "something-is".  You, Ham, have mentioned the all-is (by
some dude), and you have chastened me for 'thingyness', but I have
always maintained that it is noun-verb, or I can switch it to, verb-noun
if you prefer.  I don't see how you can hate thingyness altogether yet
like the idea of the absolute or essence.  And even for those who don't
like the idea of an absolute, process becomes a thing at some point, and
it must process something.  ANd if process doesn't become a thing, what
prevents that?  dynamism?  then dynamism becomes a thing.  If everything
is relative, then 'relative' becomes a real thing (process): it is the
way to preclude the absolute or objective entirely.

So... If you can say one thing, either way --- either this is true
absolutely, or this is false absolutely, this divide between possible
and impossible is meaningful.  [Ham, I still don't know very much about
what you think about my perspective on things.  In act, last Thursday
when I got this reply from you I started typing up a long response -
then I decided a break was better.  Anyway, I think that I have put a
lot of effort into trying to understand you, but I'm not sure if you
have done the same for me.  I mean, I know you said that you thought the
conclusion I reached seemed to be proper, so i know you are paying
attention, but.....  I guess I was just frustrated, and a bit
disappointed.

now that that's off my chest, if your absolute essence is right, doesn't
it have to be possible?  or are you putting it before the
possible-impossible divide, like phaedrus' quality and the S-O divide? 
If you are telling me that essence produces the possible-impossible
divide, that is something to think about.  But!  for me, I've said that
the only thing I can imagine being before that is 'nothing', and I can't
imagine 'nothing' being, so I imagine an undifferentiated divide
(boundary) between possible and impossible.  I say 'something-is'
(noun-verb) to try to capture it.  I think it does pretty well. 
Furthermore, 'something-is' is simpler - and more complex at the same
time.  I find it a very attractive foundation.  I think that it is
accessible to everyone, even people who have severe limitations.

But we have been putting off talk of morality.  I'll just repeat, that I
think my foundation is just as attractive if we are looking at it from a
moral perspective, but we are talking heady things now.

>From the intellectual side, the congruence between something-is,
representing a difference between possible and impossible, and I,
representing a difference between no and yes (totally dependent on
POSSIBLE), is compelling.  But I don't think that I am being unfair to
other ideas intellectually.  If you tell me that I have not reached the
height, fine, but if you tell me my foundation is wrong...  how? 
where'd I go wrong?  But then again, if you tell me that you KNOW you
are right, and that I am wrong...  you can't even come by you without
faithe.  Are we at square one?  Is it my faithe that I am that is my
problem?  Are you telling me that I should faithe that I am not, and
that then I will see clearly?  Ham, I know you are not explicitly
telling me this, but I cannot help but think that this contradiction
will be found if I give up my foundation.

before, I thought that your 'negate' was an accounting issue --- and a
process to properly account.  Anyway, I now wonder if you are leading me
to loose myself.  I don't think that unity can be found by a collective
loss of self.  On the contrary, perhaps it can be found by a collective
gain of self.  The only thing, as far as I can see, that can be gained
by loss of self is 'nothing'; and, as I've said, I think that there is a
hard boundary to prevent actually getting that far!  Something-is. 
Anyway, it is my suspicion that your essence is an embodiment of
nothing.  I suspect that you are praising the negative image produced by
the collection of somethings.  Before, I thought we were talking about
the same thing, but just imagining it different (like, if you can
imagine a circle, or any shape, amidst nothing, you were zooming in on
it, while I was blowing it up - either way, we were looking at a circle
which appeared different due to our manipulation of it.)  Now that I
think that we are talking about something different, I cannot help but
think that I am talking about something while you are talking about
nothing.  I don't mean to be offensive: any way I try to imagine
representing the cut between possible and impossible I imagine two
things which are the inverse of each other, so they appear ...  well,
perhaps you will even like to stop there, 'appear'.  My point is that
appearance, in itself, is proof enough of something - this is not to say
that appearance cannot confuse, in fact, it seems that appearance itself
MUST confuse - but appearance should give faith in reality.  How to look
at the reality that is the possible-impossible-divide (not that I am
right) ...  it may be too complex to see it simply, but to faithe it
simply seems as unavoidable as the seeing (knowledge) is
un-apprehendable.

Ham, this is all to say, that no matter how close you are, with essence,
I don't know how you can write off the simple foundation I have
presented.

With this lengthy introduction, let me look back at your last reply:




> 
> > 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:
> 
-------------------------------------------------
> 
> [Ham] 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".

[Tim]
to say absolute is to thingify it.  Certainly absolute is more noun on
the noun-verb continuum than something-is which has 'is' as the most
solid aspect.

> 
>[Ham] 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.)

[Tim]
I think I have made clear that my perspective on the 'fullness of being'
is that the 'fullness' must be at all moments.  I am not becoming more
full as I live longer.  I'm not sure how you interpreted 'fullness',
Ham.  This hearkens back to my use of WHOLE (major) and whole (minor). 
Whether or not my I can survive death: am I dead?  or: is death?  The
point was that something-is cannot die.  (the closest I can imagine to
nothing i have just come to be able to state: the potential for a
boundary between possible and impossible.  If that potential could
die...  Ham, the congruence with your essence -
beingness-potential/boundary, sensibility-possible, and
nothingness-impossible seems patent, I just can't say where we differ
because I don't see your essence but my 'something-is'.  I can't help
but feel that you are denying the foundation for its inverse.)

  
> [Ham] Sorry to disappoint you again, Tim, but the term "whole", as in "totality
> of 
> things", cannot apply to the primary source.

[Tim]
this doesn't disappoint; on the contrary, this is the most 'appointing'
part.  I agree, where I had been using WHOLE with all caps to designate
this illusory major WHOLE.  Such a WHOLE could not be.  But if you are
saying that the minor whole cannot be???  such a thing would be to deny
that there is a real, and to either endorse nothing, or multiple
un-relate-able reals(?).  I won't explore this last unless someone
thinks we need to.

Anyway, now I am encouraged that we are talking towards the same thing. 
But I am even more lost as to how I am defeated in your mind.


> [Ham]  Essence is neither Being
> nor 
> an aggregate of beings.  Its nature is such that we can not fathom it.

[Tim]
but we can fathom that it is an it about which we cannot quite fathom,
right?

 
> [Ham] As 
> I've said before, we can only sense its Value.

[Tim]
and we can fathom that, as an unfathomable it, it has Value - which
value we can sense?


> [Ham]  You are correct that the 
> 'whole' can never be attained (it is eternal),

[Tim]
again, I was using WHOLE and not whole.  and I would say that WHOLENESS
is not meaningful, but wholeness is eternal.

> [Ham] but wrong in concluding
> that 
> "by limiting itself, it is the greater."

[Tim]
still?

> [Ham]  I don't see negation as a 
> limitation, but as an extension of Absolute Sensibility.

[Tim]
okay.  I drew the congruence between sensibility and possibility. 
Within possible we choose yes and no, setting a real, dynamic boundary -
making certain possible now impossible - but the sensibility is not
between impossible or nothingness, but within possible.  [Are we making
headway?  Or am I imagining this too, lol.]

> [Ham]  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.

[Tim]
I can't do this.  For me, that would be to say: entertain an idea that
has its basis in nothing, rather than something.

> [Ham]  Call it "imagining", if you will.  Does what you imagine in any way extend your 
> being in the world?

[Tim]
yes.  That is the nature of choice.  That is the nature of change. 
Otherwise my previous choice would be overwritten, and I would expect
this one to be overwritten by the next, such that choice and change
would be meaningless.  Something is extended.


> [Ham]  Neither does negation limit or diminish the absolute 
> nature of Essence.

[Tim]
something-is can be limited in particular without limiting its
fundamental nature.  In fact, it could not be aware of its own
fundamental nature without such a process.

>[Ham]  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.

[Tim]
I don't want to pretend that the way I read this is the way you
intended.  perhaps I can come back to this...


> [Ham] 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.

[Tim]
first, we are using language now.  Second, I have said elsewhere that
physics might be too strong, that perhaps I should say a formalized or
concrete portion of metaphysics.  And, of course we are beyond physics,
meta-.  But, my goal remains.  Will physics fall out of meta-physics? 
Just like the tree is beyond the scope of the fruit.  Or else, it is
impossible for physics to come from a meta-physics!  Either way,
something is achieved.  If it is the latter, what does that say about
us?



> [Tim previously]:
> > But what about material?
> > how does it come in?!
> 
> [Ham] 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.

[Tim]
This was very unsatisfying, and this led me to think that, perhaps, you
are building up nothing.  I can understand that my perception of the
real is not the real that I am perceiving (though perception in itself
is a real too, I would think).  I can understand taht teh real is made
real by a process taht maintains the reality of the real (and the
reality of the process that reveals the real too).  I can understand
that this process might lead to counter-intuitive results and beliefs in
phantoms, but I don't see how it points to anything but a real at the
foundation.  I don't see how you can say that material is entirely MY
construct, unconnected to the absolute directly.

> But as you say: "But as Platt always says, "of course I could be wrong.""
> 

Tim ----  oh yea, just a minute,  I had gone back to this paragraph of
yours:

[Ham previously]
Absolute Essence is the 'Not-other' because nothing exists apart from
it. Difference is the "nothing that exists". Nothingness is the negation
of Essence that accounts for everything in this world of appearances. 
Experiential reality is transitory, finite, and "essentially unreal"
because its differentiating ground is nothingness. When we extract the
value of otherness for our selves, we cancel out (or fill) this
nothingness with the value of the Other.  (I call it 'double-negation").
 Drawn to the value of otherness by our innate sensibility, we attempt
to satisfy our desire by penetrating the essent that it represents. 
But, because we are negates (literal 'nothings'), reclaiming the value
of an essent is a double-negation which makes the essent an object of
our experience.  In other words, we "create" our world by converting our
value-sensibility into the experience (appearance) of things and events
that constitute our reality.

[Tim]
I think I could get back into this in detail - if you want - because
this is where you really focus on the solid - physics - of the process
of negation.  But I should not have glossed over double-negations as I
did - and then even made a bad joke about it.  Do you claim that a
double negation of essence produces essence?  Does it not occur
because...?  How can I extract value from an other if it is a negate
filled with nothingness except for what it extracts from me?  And the
last sentence still makes me think that you would have me 'create' a
world out of 'nothing' rather than live it amongst something.

Tim
-- 
  
  rapsncows at fastmail.fm

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