[MD] The first cut.

[Ham Priday]

Hi Mark --


> Hi Ham,
> The first cut in MoQ is the DQ sq cut as far as I can remember
> from the beginings of this thread.  This is a structural approach,
> which provides metaphysical handles with which to present
> Quality.  Your first cut is a mechanistic approach, and used in a
> different way.  You are referring to the knife and not the result.
> A similar first cut in Essentialism would be Essence and Self.
> Yes, I know, Self is negated Essence.  Yet the Self can bring
> Essence to view.  So, it can be considered a first cut from a
> structural point of view.

Mark, I really see little difference between a "structured" and a 
"mechanistic" approach to metaphysics.  The "result" of a cut is a division 
or separation of the entity to which the cut is applied.  In ontology we are 
talking about cutting an undifferentiated Source to produce Existence, and 
the cause of the cut is as significant as the result.  (Even more so, since 
we can define the result but not its source.)

Yes, if DQ/sq is the model we need to follow, Essence/selfness would be a 
logical paradigm.  It would be inaccurate, however, because the cut of Self 
from Essence does not reduce or diminish the source in the way that cutting 
out a slice reduces the pie.  The Source does not give up its essence in 
creation, and does not admit to otherness; what Essence negates is what it 
is not.  So that what we call existence is not really Essence but the 
appearance of otherness objectivized from Value.  (To avoid confusion, I use 
Sartre's term "essent" to designate objective otherness.)

Again, as I reminded Joe, metaphysics does not lend itself to logical 
syllogisms and quantitative analysis.  I'm not sure about Pirsig's 
indefinable DQ, but the Absolute Source of Essentialism is non-relational 
and immutable.  In either case, the first cut is Difference and, to my way 
of thinking, the "knife" that makes that cut is nothingness.

Incidentally, I see what you mean about Joe's unconventional concept of 
Evolution.

Essentially speaking,
Ham