From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Fri Aug 05 2005 - 06:47:38 BST
Hello all --
I don't know if any of you have taken the time to review Steven Kaufman's
Unified Reality Theory (URT) as I had suggested awhile back, but I purchased
the 400-page paperback edition and read enough during my vacation last week
to form some personal conclusions relative to the MoQ.
Kaufman describes reality as a state of "existential self-realization",
expending considerable wordage on the dynamics by which existence forms
relationships with itself. "A relationship," he says, "requires a plurality
or parts. Since existence begins as a singular, nonseparate whole with no
separate parts, there's no way for existence to form a relationship with
itself. For this reason, existence, in order to form a relationship with
itself, must first either *polarize* or *dualize* into opposite or
complementary aspects of existence."
This is all fascinating, clearly written, and well demonstrated graphically,
but his definition of Absolute Existence as Consciousness, poses an
epistemological problem. This is most apparent in his chapter on
"Consciousness as Absolute Existence", from which I've extracted several key
statements.
"We don't experience consciousness as such, because experience requires an
experiencer/experienced duality [sound familiar?] ...Consciousness is
borderless undefined existence. Awareness is bordered defined existence,
which must coexist with the boundary which forms that existence, which
boundary is experience itself. Thus, awareness of experience and
consciousness actually are mutually exclusive states of existence, since one
involves and existent duality and the other exists in the absence of any
duality.
"Consciousness is existence that's not experiencing itself but just being
itself, being just what it is. However, consciousness is also relative
existence, existence that's localized or limited to a relative somewhere,
experiencing itself as it exists in a relative state of awareness.
"Without the foundation of absolute existence, there can be no relative
existence. Without the foundation of consciousness, there can be no
awareness. Without the foundation of unexperienced reality, there can be no
experiential reality. Without the foundation of universal being, there can
exist no individual being."
Since, according to Kaufman, awareness cannot exist in the absence of a
duality, the inference is that Consciousness -- his Absolute Existence -- is
non-sentient. (Can "just being itself" possibly imply "feeling itself"?)
Although the author's footnotes remind us that Consciousness is only "what
we call that which exists, which can't be named, because naming is defining,
and in defining it, it's not that," I find his concept of an insentient
consciousness implausible and certainly paradoxical.
Also, although the author asserts that "it's impossible for us to not
exist," and "what we are must ultimately exist outside the context of and
beyond any experience, including the experience of ourself as 'I'", he
offers no theory of a transcendent self, hence, in my opinion, failing to
deliver on the claim of the back cover squib that the URT "uses science and
logic to demonstrate that God actually exists, as a pervasive and absolute
consciousness which transcends the realities of space and time."
To summarize, I think MoQers would find Kaufman's construction of the
relational model of reality well worth reading vis-a-vis the Quality
heirarchy, despite minimal discussion of Value in this thesis. Like the
MoQ, Kaufman's reality is experiential rather than "phenomenal" and shows
the influence of Taoist teachings. My disappointment with both authors is
that -- whether Quality or Consciousness is the ultimate reality -- neither
reality is sentient, and the reader is left with no hope of transcending
finitude or participating in its absolute Oneness.
For anyone interested, "Unified Reality Theory: The Evolution of Existence
into Experience" is published by Destiny Toad Press and is available from
order@bookmasters.com. for about $20 US dollars, plus postage.
Essentially yours,
Ham
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Aug 05 2005 - 06:49:57 BST