At 02:47 AM 8/29/2008, you wrote:
Platt --
[Ham, previously]:
Unrealized value is a malapropism. Without sensible awareness
there can be no consciousness and no realization.
Which for "theists" like ourselves suggests a reason for the
agency of individuated selfness.
Do you agree?
[Platt]:
Well, yes and no. I think there's a reason for being self-aware,
namely that being so is better than not being so. But, of course,
I can't prove it. :-)
You "think" that being is better than not being? I don't believe
for a moment that this flippancy about your existence is
sincere. Can there be any doubt that your survival as a human being
is the biological, social, and intellectual purpose of Platt Holden?
Ron has initiated another debate (Core problemS) about whether the
levels are discrete or continuous, from which I shall recuse myself
because they're meaningless. Value, on the other hand, is
self-evident, as Pirsig himself made quite clear. This is not an
'apples and pears' comparison or an aesthetic judgment call. It's a
given. There is no value greater or more vital to the individual
than his own existence. Every decision and action that you perform
in life is to preserve, sustain and enrich your being in the
world. Even if you were unconscious, your biological functions
would continue working toward that purpose.
When I started describing Essentialism on this forum, I assumed that
the value of being-aware was a universal, self-evident
principle. Instead it seems to be the most difficult concept I've
had to get across here. Whether it's the levels hierarchy, the
notion of a moral universe, or Pirsig's overcoming of duality, the
MoQists by their own description are selfless automatons produced
and controlled by biological, social and intellectual forces whose
only purpose is to move an insensible universe toward its own
inevitable betterness. I suppose we should be thankful for this
fleeting taste of cosmic value.
This is worse than postmodern nihilism. This is living in a state
of total self-denial.
IMHO, of course.
Regards,
Ham
Ham,
I do acknowledge a self, a self that is an ever-changing, collection
of overlapping, interrelated, inorganic, biological, social and
intellectual, static patterns of value.
Marsha
.
.
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.........
.
.
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