----- Original Message -----
From: "Ham Priday" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 4:32 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] the subjective
Hi Marsha --
You wrote that "consciousness is not found in neurons
or gray cells". I agree. But I cannot find consciousness
anywhere. I've seen it flow in meditation, but it wasn't
any kind of entity.
You won't find consciousness because it is not an 'existent'. It cannot
be localized, quantified, or directly observed. By all objective
standards, it does not exist. Yet, conscious awareness is the essential
You. Without it there would be no Marsha, and that would be tragic for
all of us.
The subjective self transcends existence, even as it actively participates
in it. Which is why we can't dismiss it from our reality perspective. I
suspect you introduced this topic because Prisig puts very little emphasis
on the individual self. His worldview is a collective hierarchy of levels
and patterns whose morality and existence are independent of the
individual. As you know, I consider this a travesty of philosophical
understanding.
Human beings are a unique combination of psychic awareness and organic
matter. Each of us is a 'being-aware' -- a microcosmic representation of
the Sensibility/Otherness dichotomy that defines existence. The source of
this dichtomy is absolute and undifferentiated. But because our
neuro-sensory perception is finite, we are cognizant of reality as a
continuous series of events in time and space which we intellectualize as
cause-and-effect. The sensibility that starts this whole
process is our affinity for Essence, which I call Value.
Because we are organic beings, this value-sensibility is converted by the
brain into the things and events of experienced reality. So, in a real
sense, the universe is your value objectivized. Or, to phrase it more
poetically, you are your universe. You bring value into being through
experience. And it is by your free choice of values that your world is
either a joyous and inspiring place, or a dreadful and burdensome
existence.
The existentialists here say the subjective self emerges out of being and
is insignificant. They won't consider my view that being is a valuistic
construct of the self which is primary to existence. Pirsig's MoQ kind of
straddles the fence by positing subjects and objects as patterns of
quality, without telling us where quality comes from or how it can be
realized in the absence of a sensible agent. Perhaps his theory was
influenced by the 'selflessness' of Zen Buddhism. (You would know better
that I.) I can only say that a philosophy which doesn't acknowledge a
purpose for human existence is deficient.
Long live the subjective!
Warmest regards,
Ham
Greetings Ham,
I'm afraid we're never going to get there from here, and flattery won't help
much. I exist conventionally, I may wish at times to exist poetically (that
would be nice), but I do not exist as an independent, permanent agent. I
exist as an ever-changing, collection of overlapping, interrelated,
inorganic, biological, social and intellectual, static patterns of value. I
suppose that does make me a valuistic construct. I think maybe my
experiences are based on many causes and conditions, not least of which is
the previous thought. This may not be as poetic as your definition of a
subjective self, but there is joy and there is love amongst these patterns.
You are a sweetie,
Marsha
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