Hi David --
> My point was that you seemed to be saying the sensate is
> not differentiated earlier which I'd suggest is wrong and you
> now seem to agree.
If the term "sensate" means the same as sensibilia, it defines sensible
experience and is differentiated. However, since Value is the connection
between Sensibility and Otherness, it is undifferentiated until experienced
by the subject. This is not to say that the subject doesn't sense "pure" or
undifferentiated Value, however. The problem is with the semantics, not
with the epistemology. Philosophers have tended to use "experience" and
"sensation" synonymously. Thus, anything that the subject feels or senses
is commonly labeled "experience", whereas the epistemic meaning of
experience is "conscious perception of an external, bodily, or psychic
event." Even Pirsig referred to the "Quality event" in his SODV paper:
"Quality is not a thing. It is an event. It is the event at which the
subject becomes aware of the object."
This is unfortunate, because pre-intellectual Value is NOT an event; it is
primary to events and objects. Indeed, the sense of Value is what initiates
the whole cycle of S/O individuation, proprietary awareness, and
experiential cognizance.
> The main thing I disagree with below is that you appear
> to suggest that we are somehow 'wired' to experience value.
> Like the MOQ, it seems better to suggest that all existence
> and activity involves values. The only real alternative to this
> suggestion is really that certain processes are not active but
> mechanical. But this assumes that there are laws acting that
> rule out any possibilities so that there is no choice or action.
All existence "involves values", but only because the actualization of
existence as process is a function of the cognizant subject. That the
sensible agent stands apart from its objective otherness and is "prewired"
to perceive a differentiated system actually ensures free choice and action.
> And at base, science finds that processes have to be described
> in terms of choices and not mechanistic laws.
>
> Perhaps law needs to be seen differently? Is law simply habit?
> Are habits like actions or mechanisms? Do habits lead to a
> kind of unconsciousness or sleep.
Science for the most part has managed to configure the physical universe in
terms of laws and principles that are consistent with a cause-and-effect
system. I think it's philosophers, rather than the scientists, who see a
need to describe process in terms of choices. I have no problem with
Science as a pragmatic tool for understanding the order of the universe.
What other approach is more effective for utilitarian purposes?
As for the need to regard physical laws as "habits", it smacks of animism to
me, and I've gone that round with MoQists who insist on attributing "value
judgments" to atoms, magnets, and biological cells. I'm afraid I have to
side with Protagoras on this issue: "Man is the measure of all things." Man
is earth's valuistic creature and the "choicemaker" in an amoral universe.
> DQ is full awareness
> SQ is the falling away of awareness?
Such axioms are better left without comment for one who does not subscribe
to the MoQ ontology. In my philosophy, Essence is full (absolute)
Sensibility, and Existence is the differentiated awareness of the finite
subject.
Best regards,
Ham
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