Our Qualitative Existence

Selected quotations from the book

What is knowledge? What is belief? What is the distinguishing characteristic that differentiates the one from the other? What are their respective roles and what are the effects that arise when their roles are misunderstood, confused, or misapplied? Answers to these questions appeared in a statement published in the Book of Mormon in 1830. Although the relevant passage is often cited, its meaning has remained undeciphered, leaving it to languish in obscurity. In the discussion that follows the puzzle that has perplexed readers for so many years is addressed, key words are explained, and the significance of the statement's far-reaching consequences explored. (p. 9)

Sometime in our childhood, usually in our early toddler years, we become consciously aware of ourselves and of things around us. It doesn't occur to us at the time but is nonetheless the case that our awareness of ourself is contingent on our awareness of things other than ourself. To be aware of the one is to be aware of the other. Both are necessary. Without an awareness of the one there is not an awareness of the other. Because the existence of the one is contingent on the existence of the other, existence consists not of the one or the other but of the two in relation to each other. (p. 59)

Could there be a means without a purpose or a purpose without a means? The immaterial self that perceives needs a partner and so too does the material other-than-self that is perceived. The two turn existence into a duo/solo presentation. When they are two they are one, and when they are one they are two. As if by magic they are two yet one simultaneously. This miracle is the person, of which you and I, dear reader, are instances. We are not the self alone and not the other-than-self alone. Neither the one nor the other separately, we are two in one and one in two. (p. 62)

As one cycle ends and another begins what is there to indicate that a person born at the succeeding beginning is a continuation of the person that died at the previous ending? The other-than-self is the embodiment of the self. The self is both constant and infinite while the other-than-self is changing and finite. The person as a self remains constant while as an other-than-self changes. (pp. 73–74)

Although unconscious at the end of a cycle, the compound-in-one relationship of the self and other-than-self remains intact. It continues as a new cycle begins in which the malleable other-than-self takes on a new form through the reproductive process. Unconscious during the gestation period when the other-than-self is formulated, the person characterized by the newly embodied self, retains its sense of self when it becomes conscious at birth. (p. 75)