[MD] logically incoherent

[Ham Priday]

Dear Marsha --

On Tuesday, 9/06/11 at 5:14 PM, "MarshaV" <valkyr at att.net> wrote.

> Hello Ham,
>
> Can you provide proofs for your premises?
>
> Citing "classical philosophy" is an argument  from authority.
> Is there a proof for the premise, 'ex nihilo nihil fit'?  Or is it
> true because the Ancient Greeks thought so?

Unfortunately, the "proofs" you're demanding are non-existent.  Unlike the 
empirical conclusions of Science, philosophical theories are unprovable. 
That's largely because what we call "proof" is confirmed by empirical 
evidence, and ultimate reality is not empirical.  It's also because were we 
able to prove a metaphysical theory, it would mean that we had possession of 
absolute truth   And humans cannot have absolute truth without losing their 
freedom as agents of Value.  .

> Please explain your "empirical precept for 'first cause'"?

You already know it, Marsha.  Since you were a toddler, you learned (or were 
taught) that every occurrence is the consequence of some previous event or 
action.  We live in a world of cause-and-effect where "conventional logic" 
tells us that there is no such thing as spontaneous creation.  Scientists 
and philosophers have long pondered the paradoxical question as to how this 
progression of events began.  The prevailing view of Science is that it all 
started with a cataclysmic Bang some 14 billion years ago.  But since energy 
and mass were required to ignite this "First Cause", some cosmologists have 
opted for a "steady-state" universe with no beginning.

Philosophers, on the other hand, have reasoned that time and space are not 
intrinsic to the universe, suggesting that the progression itself is an 
experiential illusion and that evolution is a "modality" of the Creator or 
Source rather than a serial process.  This, of course, contradicts the 
causal precept of empiricism which we all grow up with.  But even from the 
empirical perspective, things do not come into being by their own power. 
And, if logic has any philosophical meaning, that necessitates an uncreated 
Source.

> With all respect to Sir Doktor Professor Heidegger, where is your proof 
> for
> the metaphysical adaptation of Heidegger's question?

Again, while there is no proof, you know this intuitively.  Why is there 
being instead of nothing?  Being IS; everything exists.  If there were no 
being there would be no Marsha to ask the question.  But "beingness" is 
always finite, and Heidegger went on to discuss finitude (existence) as a 
"negation" of the Absolute.  This concept was new to philosophy but not to 
human thought.  Eckhart in the 14th century taught that the Creator "denies 
that otherness is anything but itself."  The logical equivalent of this 
denial was formulated as "not anything other than" by Nicholas Cusa a 
century later.  It is my theory that, in the metaphysical sense, denial is a 
negation of nothingness to actualize an experienced otherness.

In closing, I'd like to stress one additional point that applies to a number 
of MD participants who seem to be treating reality as a myth, which is 
nihilism carried to an extreme.  For example, Ron recently aserted:

> Experience is illusion. Therefore all wisdom is illusional.
> Quality is illusion, every last bit.

Such pronouncements are not only troubling, they make a mockery of Pirsig's 
thesis.  You may call existence an illusion, just as you call the self an 
illusion.  But you can not escape the fact that this "illusion" is your 
reality.

Essentially speaking,
Ham