David M, Steve, Bo, and DMB (if he's still listening) --
I have more to say on this topic, David, but first I have to clarify a statement about my philosophy of Essence that DMB has misinterpreted. I mention it in this thread because it is relevant to the origin and nature of subjective consciousness. Ham (previously): > It might be helpful to mention that I reserve "existence" for > experiential (objective) reality, assuming that what does not > exist (Essence) simply "IS". DMB responds: > This is one of the stupidest sentences I've ever read. > What does not exist simply is? That's pure nonsense. > Obviously, if it does not exist then it simply isn't. > And the first part of the sentence makes no sense either. > My whole point was to distinguish experience from objective > reality, but you simply re-confused them here. It's hopeless. > I give up. Since I don't want to go on record as writing a "stupid sentence", even if it is DMB who has made this appraisal, some clarification is in order. Here's what DMB missed in his haste to dismiss my statement as nonsense. EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS IS MADE AWARE BY EXPERIENCE. Inasmuch as objective reality is experiential (i.e., beingness divided by nothingness), it does not define Essence. Essence is the "potentiality to be" but not being itself. Its potentiality is pure "Is-ness". The fundamental nature of Essence is best expressed as the predicate "IS". All else is an "emanation", "mode", "negation", or "reduction" (depending on your ontology) of this absolute potentiality. Thus, Essence is not a created "existent": it does not exist. If DMB is unable or unwilling to accept the logic of this concept, that's his problem. My reason for bringing this up here is that what we call Sensibility and Value are derived from Essence, but they can only be experienced by a cognizant agent that stands apart from its undivided source, that is not intrinsically essential. This is why I place great importance on something Bo has asserted: "Consciousness is the Value of the S/O divide." I think he has the principle exactly right, except that he's attempted to make it work in the context of Pirsig's levels hierarchy. If subjective awareness is the value of the existential dichotomy (sensibility/otherness), then human beings are born as "sensible agents" of value. In other words, the essence of the individual is value-sensibility. Everything experienced in existence is an intellectual construct of this value which binds (draws, attracts?) the self to its other-beingness. Although the particular forms of experienced objects and their precise arrangement in space/time follows a cosmic design, everything that is experienced is representational value. And it is the individual agent whose value-sensibility "creates" beingness by bringing it into conscious awareness. I hope this helps explain why the newborn individual, who is "deprived of beingness", not only seeks out its value experientially but carefully and methodically identifies those objects (patterns?) of being which complement its value sensibility. In this role, the individual is an autonomous agent. Subjects and objects are born with the individual. Questions? Comments? Chastisements? Regards, Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
