Hi Michael --
[HP]:
To posit Quality or Value as independent of sensibility, let alone
as the primary force of the universe, is an absurdity.
[MP]:
This caught my eye. Ham this is a little like saying electricity does
not exist if there is no resistor to tap the current. And in many ways
that is a true statement, depending on your definition (word weasle
alert) of electricity. But we all know electricity "exists" in the socket.
While the socket just sits there, it's arguable there is no electricity
"in" it. But does that apparent "lack" of electricity in any way make
us less apt to grab a child considering sticking in a fork?
Is "electricity" just the flow or does it include the potential for flow?
Interesting that you would choose "electricity" for your analogy.
Technically speaking, electricity doesn't exist "in the socket." Since
electricity is usually defined as the flow of electrons (current), what
exists at the terminals of the socket is an electro-motive charge or
potential between them. Current doesn't flow until the circuit is
completed. If a child sticks a fork in the socket while in contact with an
electrical ground, he becomes part of the circuit and feels the current as
its resistance load.
But why use an analogy when there are so many examples of actual value to
choose from?
Suppose the child's mother tells him she's going to bake an apple pie which
is something he's never sampled. He may be interested in the baking
procedure, but the pie has no particular value to him until he savors its
taste. If he enjoys it, he will henceforth recognize an apple pie as
something of value. Where is the value of the pie before it is tasted?
Does it make sense to say that it "exists potentially"?
Or, suppose the child is handed a typed copy of "Jack and the Beanstalk"
before he can read. Can we say that the value of this story exists
potentially? Does the written score for a piece of music have any value
before it is heard? Did the majesty of the Grand Canyon have any value
before it was seen? And what was the value of morality before there were
people?
I think you get my point to Marsha. Quality or Value without realization is
meaningless. Only a sensible subject can realize value, goodness, or
excellence. And these esthetic/moral appraisals are relative not only to
the subjective agent but to the objective phenomena by which they are
realized. There is no "unrealized value".
I was reading a little Schopenhauer the other day (I'm better now, thanks)
Good! Read more Schopenhauer. He's one of my favorite philosophers.
...and it occurred to me that his approach to "will" is very similar to
Pirsig's
contention of Quality underlying all patterns with one major,
fundamentally
transformative distinction. Schopenhauer's reality boils down to being an
infinite, flat featureless plane in which our "will" operates "willy
nilly" with no
guide but our own. Pirsig's is the same thing ... but with a slope. Its
nearly
identical, but it has direction. It has potential. And this slope
completely
alters the perception of reality and how our S'ian "will" operates within
it.
In the chapter on Value in my book I quote this passage from Schopenhauer's
"World as Will and Idea":
"The delusive ecstacy which seizes a man at the sight of a woman whose
beauty is suited to him, and pictures to him a union with her as the highest
good, is just the sense of the species, which, recognizing the distinct
stamp of the same, desire to perpetuate it with this individual ... Thus
what guides man here is really an instinct which is directed to doing the
best for the species, while man himself imagines that he only seeks this
heightening of his own pleasure."
My interpretation of this statement is that free will expresses itself as
the desire for value, and value is the driving force of man's behavior.
So ... back to your statement above, yes... in a way Quality or
Value, independent of sensibility by a sensing agent is meaningless.
But they *can* still be there independently as a potential for
sensibility. Even without a sensible agent, the *potential* for
sensibility remains, and that makes *all* the difference. It doesn't
"exist" per se, and as you say is meaningless in reality absent
sensibility. But its still there, and where we have the sensibility to
appreciate it, it comes alive as a flow in patterned reality.
We are fundamentally in accord, Michael, except that I distinguish
potentiality from actuality. In my ontology, Essence is the "potential" for
EVERYTHING -- including sensibility. But, inasmuch as we are estranged from
Essence as "beings-aware", our sensibility is the desire for its value to
us. To be aware is to be "wanting" the source of our being. We are drawn
to that source by value. From the absolute perspective, Essence has no
desire and is its own value.
Thanks for this fascinating analysis of your views on value.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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