From: mark maxwell (laughingpines@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Tue Sep 27 2005 - 22:16:28 BST
Ham:
What is pre-intellectual? -- and, by inference, what
is not.
Mark:
Hello Ham,
The intellect can only deal with concepts. Therefore,
the conceptually unknown cannot be dealt with, by
definition.
You identify the prefix of the term,
'pre-intellectual' to suggest a causal connection
between the conceptually unknown and the known. But as
David Hume indicates, we have no idea of causation - a
problem which has disturbed philosophers for many
decades since Hume introduced this observation.
The MOQ disposes of causation altogether and replaces
it with value.
Ham:
There is an underlying assumption in all of these
debates that something called DQ is the undivided
source of experienced reality.
Mark:
DQ is immediately apprehended before conceptualisation
compartmentalises experience. It is in this sense
undivided. This is pure empiricism, not an assumption.
An example of an assumption would be: Potentiality.
Ham:
Although MoQ's author refused to provide a
metaphysical thesis for his philosophy...
Mark:
DQ is never argued for Ham - it is experienced.
One cannot argue for immediate experience before
conceptualisation, argument is, by its nature,
conceptual.
Metaphysics comes into it by suggesting all concepts
are differentiations between static values.
Unless you feel there are innate ideas, at the
earliest point in our lives ideas are inducted.
Ham:
While there seems to be a general consensus that
existence is a "patterned" system, whether the
particular patterns are a construct of the intellect
or
inherent in the experienced world, patterning can not
be indigenous to an undivided source (DQ).
Mark:
Intellect is, by its nature, selective; that is to
say, intellect has value biases. Intellect selects on
the basis of artistic and pragmatic value.
This selection is done after stable repeated patterns
present themselves as valued relationships to
immediate intellectual experience (induction to begin
with)
Ham:
For a "pattern" or division to occur there must
be a potentiality for Difference in the source which
can be actualised in the experiential world as a
cosmic template or universal pattern.
Mark:
You are arguing from deduction Ham. Potentiality is an
assumption.
The language of potentiality, actualisation, etc. is
Aristotelian. Here we return to causation and its
metaphysical contortions.
Hume and Nargarjuna reject causation, and so does the
MOQ Ham.
Ham:
I submit that, whatever your theory of differentiated
reality may be, unless you begin with a premise that
allows for Difference in the "primary" sense that is,
as a potential of the Source your arguments are
without metaphysical foundation.
Mark:
Metaphysics is not restricted to your narrow
presumption of it Ham.
Ham:
How do we know there is an ultimate reality? We start
with the proposition that nothing can bring itself
into being; for then it would have to be prior
to and greater than itself. It would have to exist in
order to impart existence on itself, which is an
absurdity.
Mark:
That is to say, you begin with assumptions. The MOQ
does not begin with assumption but direct experience.
Ham:
Anselm's ontological argument
identifies God with the Supreme Being, which is "a
being than which nothing greater can be conceived."
But it isn't the attribute of "greatness''
that confirms ultimate reality; it's the logical
necessity for it. Since nothing can be produced by
nothing, whatever we choose to call existence must
refer to a causal source that is its true reality.
Mark:
There's that word causation again. Aristotelian cause,
essence, potential, logic.
Ham:
Now I realise that many of you reject the notion of a
source beyond physical reality (which is why Mr.
Pirsig avoided metaphysics);
Mark:
Woah boy! Woahhhh there!
Mr. P in no way rejects metaphysics Ham.
The bottom line is this:
Essence must be defined on the foundation of
assumptions while empirical experience cannot.
Ham:
however, I think that
it's quite possible to identify DQ as the primary
Source and remain within the bounds of the MoQ
concept.
Mark:
If by 'identify' you mean to give DQ an 'identity'
then no.
Ham:
Toward that end, Reinier and I have been examining the
writings of Nicholas Cusanus, a 15th century
theologists and astronomer, whose thoughts show the
influence of the neo-Platonist school of philosophy.
Mark:
Show the influence of? Well, they are not going to be
influenced by quantum mechanics are they?
Who is Reinier and what has Cusanus have to do with
the price of fish?
Ham:
Assuming that you can accept the concept of an
absolute, timeless and undifferentiated Source, you
find yourself asking how such a source can bring into
being a finite, dynamic and differentiated world.
Mark:
In other words you are asking people to conceptualise
that which cannot be conceptualised? And then you go
on to ask people to conceptualise how the conceptual
can become conceptualised?
Ham:
The best answer, I think,
Mark:
Best? So, you are saying, 'The highest quality
conception lies...'
Ham:
lies hidden in Cusa's theory of the "coincidence of
opposites". The logic of human reasoning, like
mathematics, does not apply to a state of infinity or
the Absolute.
Mark:
Because quality cannot be defined. That is,
conceptualisations such as logic cannot encapsulate
that which is outside conceptualisation.
Didn't' this occur to you Ham?
Ham:
Cusa allowed for this when he theorised that the
'first principle' had to be a not-other which is not
opposed to anything (i.e., is not other than either X
or not X). The Cusan coincidence is the ultimate
state of reality in which relational opposites like
"negative and "positive" are equivalents.
Mark:
Fancy that! Blimey! Good shatting God! The, 'absolute,
timeless and undifferentiated Source' cannot have
relational opposites? And why pray tell? Oh yes! F**k
me! Relational opposites ARE differentiations! Jesus
wept you're clever Ham. Christ!
Ham:
The key words in Cusa's theory are
Mark:
Go on, tell me! Tell me quick you gorgeous swine! Tell
me now before i hate you!
Ham:
"not" and "other".
Mark:
Ooooohhhhhhh. You sweltering heap of sex!
Ham:
I contend that the law of contrariety
also has a special inference when applied to a
non-contradictory source. For example: the opposite of
Oneness is not duality or some finite quantity
but an 'imaginary' nothingness; infinity cannot be
increased or diminished; the
Absolute cannot be partitioned into finite segments;
what is Immutable has neither a beginning nor an end.
Mark:
No end! Surely not. We can't do without end. Not on
any terms.
Ham:
To construct an ontology of Creation with an absolute
source as its Creator, it is necessary that this
source contain the potential for difference as its
essence. Although Cusanus did not cite such a
potential in his theory of a non-contradictory first
principle,
Mark:
No! I'm shattered! You've betrayed me! Just when i
thought is was safe to lay my trust within your caring
heart, you shit on me from a great height! You
bastard!
Ham:
one of the corollaries of his theory is a
doctrine of possibilities and actuality, the notion of
"actualised possibility", or what he called possest,
signifying a combination of Latin "posse", (able,
possibility) and "esse", (being, actualisation).
Mark:
Posset? I think I'll use that word in bed tonight.
Ham:
This doctrine asserts that what is possible for the
first principle also is actual. If the possibility of
contradictory otherness is always present in
Essence and becomes actualised when there is an
awareness to experience it, then it is this
actualisation that is manifested in experience as
existence.
Mark:
Well that clears that one up then! Just when it looked
hopeless, a few words of clarity shine hope and
joyousness where once festered heaps of foul smelling
turds.
Ham:
Because Creation "happens" it must have an
explanation.
Mark:
Oh it must! It must. I challenge anyone to suggest
otherwise. As soon as i read your post i thought to
myself, 'Someones has just let their creation happen
in this room! They should keep their creation to
themselves they should! It's not polite.'
Ham:
And the ontology that explains it is an ontology of
differentiation.
Mark:
Well that's right. The undifferentiated has the
potential to differentiate those differentiations
which are differentiated and there to be
differentiated potentially. Simple isn't it for
Christ's sake! Phew! That's that then End of MD forum.
Ham:
The primary difference
is the actualisation of nothingness as the "division"
of subjective awareness from objective otherness. This
creates a polar system in which reality becomes the
object of awareness. Metaphysically the system
(existence) is not other than its source (Essence),
but in finite terms it is broken into its experiential
constituents. "Not" represents the individual
(proprietary) self-awareness, and "other" represents
all of physical reality, including the self-identified
biological organism whose neural components experience
this awareness.
Mark:
I don't know what you're smoking man, but i could do
with a toke on that alright. Jesus! This sounds like
good shit!
Ham:
Thus, what is an otherness to man is a not-other to
Essence. But man (self-awareness) is a negate -- the
"not-" of this "not-other" and the locus
of primary difference. The fact that man does not
experience existence as Essence (Quality), but as a
dynamic system of relational objects and events
occurring in time and space, says more about the
limitations of man's finite experience that it does
about the Absolute Source. It behooves us,
then, to study human experience if we are to learn how
man converts his sense of the Source into the myriad
phenomena he perceives as constituting his existential
reality.
Mark:
They can't touch you for behooving. I behoved last
weekend and I'm not ashamed to admit it. In fact, I'm
behoving right now damn you! Go on! Enjoy it!
Ham:
I know this is a "heavy" one, and I've mixed in a few
ideas from my own thesis here.
Mark:
No shit? You're joking? Come oooooooon? Good heavens
to Betsy, there are no ideas of your own here? Surely?
I mean, Casanus knew all about neural networks and
shit didn't he?
Ham:
But I do hope that the overall concept, starting with
Primary Difference, will be viewed as sufficiently
compatible with the MoQ
Mark:
Don't hold your breath.
Come to think of it, hold your breath and don't under
any circumstances stop holding your breath.
Ham:
to evoke some spirited discussion regarding the
epistemology of existence.
Mark:
Oh don't worry, there are PLENTY of loonybins around
here to enter into a spirited discussion.
(Oooooo-eeerrrrrrrrrr!)
Ham:
Anyway, I offer this as a way of getting back to the
fundamentals needed to support any metaphysical
proposition.
Mark:
I've lived all my life hoping and praying that someone
such as you will charge into my life and transform if
magnificently and without scope for pleasure.
Ham:
I hope it will be considered in that spirit.
Essentially yours,
Ham
Mark:
You have GOT to be joking?
___________________________________________________________
How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday
snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com
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 : Tue Sep 27 2005 - 22:21:39 BST