[MD] The Dynamics of Value

[Ham Priday]

Dear Mark --


> I admit to not understanding the ontology as you present it, and will
> continue to ask the dumb questions.  In terms of whether it coexists
> with Quality can only be determined for me once I have a meaningful
> comprehension of both.  I do understand that there are premises
> which may seem to antagonize each other, but redemption is always
> possible.
>
> Yes, the negation of essence.  My question is why does something
> have to be negated in order to exist?  Is it not possible to have creation
> (not the religious kind but the sensible kind) without negation?  I am not
> asking about first principle, or what happened first, but why is an
> absolute source necessary to explain our sensibility?  Again, from before,
> we can say that light negates darkness, but a simpler explanation would
> be that light fills darkness.  In this case darkness is indeed a 
> background.

If created existence were an "addition" to the uncreated Source, Essence 
would not be absolute.  Logically, you can't expand or extend what is 
already absolute.  (Remember my analogy of the mountain climber who can only 
progress downward fom the summit?)  Everything that exists has to be negated 
from the Source.  Think of Creation as a "reduction" of Essence.  Your 
"created web" of existence begins with Difference, and Difference must 
logically be a negation of what is eternally absolute and immutable.

> The quiddity you speak of implies potential.  We translate such
> potential into our consciousness.  This would be similar to my notion
> of the waterwheel harnessing the waterfall to create energy.  Your
> premise seems to point to a much more fundamental translation
> (or differentiation if you want).  It is in the tern negation that I have
> a problem.  If negation is the translational operator, it leaves a lot of
> questions concerning the attributes of such negation.  This is where I
> got stuck before, I think.  To understand a premise, I need more
> details or analogies.

Essence is, indeed, "absolute potentiality", as both Hegel and Heidegger 
have duly noted and Eckhart has implied.  But since negation is not a change 
or act on the part of the absolute Source, we can only define it as the 
creational "modality" of Essence.  Thus, from the finite perspective, 
Essence is negational.  Metaphysically, however, Essence "begets otherness" 
by negating Nothingness.  This sets up a dichotomy between negated 
Sensibility (the 'negate' or sensible self) and Otherness (the 'essent' or 
ordered beingness) which together comprise our existential reality.

As the individuated observer, the negate is drawn to the value of what it is 
denied (estranged from) as a human being.  Human beings are value-sensible 
creatures.  Like the thirsty butterfly on the flower petal, we sap the 
"essence" of our valuistic reality, leaving only its objective appearance as 
our experienced object.  Pirsig describes DQ as the source of Reality.  I 
describe Value as the ground of Existence.  Ultimately, however, both the 
world of appearances and the Value-sensibility that actualizes it have their 
source in  Absolute Essence.

I hope my analogies are not too far-fetched.to help resolve some of your 
questions.  You'll note that I put more emphasis on the "metaphysical side" 
of reality, because that's the side we need to acknowledge and comprehend if 
we are to complete this Value ontology.

Again, many thanks for bearing with me, Mark.

Essentially yours,
Ham