From: David M (davidint@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Fri Aug 05 2005 - 19:17:58 BST
Hi Ham & MOQers
Interesting. Funny that I just read this which overlaps and offers
a somewhat different perspective:
http://www.onlineoriginals.com/showitem.asp?itemID=287&articleID=35
This may interest other MOQers as it shows how an ontology of
equi-primordial being and becoming or SQ & DQ can offer a new
conception of god. Macann also discusses relationship of his ideas to
the East and people like Nishida. I think Macann in this essay sets out
a good reason why the ONE should not be thought of as conscious.
Macannlike Pirsig see the need to describe being/SQ in levels so as
to be able to tell a genetic story of the dynamic evolution of being/SQ.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: <hampday@earthlink.net>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Friday, August 05, 2005 6:47 AM
Subject: Re: MD URT vs MOQ
>
> 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
>
>
>
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