Ham, Some questions on your Essentialism:
- Are you saying that without a sensible value agent the "concept" of reality is meaningless, or rather more straightforwardly that reality still exists, just without meaning? Isn't the latter a little like the "if a tree falls in the woods" question? - You refer to the "role" of a sensible agent. Doesn't "role" imply purpose? If so, what is the purpose of Value, and how was/is it that it came into being? - If as we have discussed you feel Value does not exist except in the sensing, was there Value prior to the existence of sensing agents? Is it not just as likely that Value is simply a by-product of the sensing agent having a sensing ability rather than the agent being a product of Value? In other words: isn't your "Value" what it is just a by-product of sensing agents being able to sense something? I guess this is a chicken/egg question. > > Ham, > > You provide an interesting evolutionary view of the free will of > choices. > > How does Quality fit in? > > I don't know that my view of free will is "evolutionary", but it is > fundamental to my concept of human existence. > First of all, I prefer the term Value to Quality, despite the fact > that the > MoQ's author has equated the two. Value is a measure of what we > individually desire or want in life -- the desiderata of our > experience. I > consider it the driving force of human activity which, if properly > nurtured > and allowed free expression, can achieve a "giant leap for mankind" > in all > endeavors. We are all innately value-sensible creatures, but all > too often > our values are suppressed by external influences that preempt them, > such as > coercion or suppression by the state, control by the society, or > moral codes > accepted on the authority of others. > > Essentially, value is the affinity of sensibility for its estranged > source. > In the individual it is manfested relationally as "wanting" -- the > psycho-emotional response to esthetic, moral, and conceptual > attributes of > experience which itself is a construct of value. The phenomena > (objects and > events) of experience are objectivized representations of the > individual's > value-sensibility. Pirsig defines experience as "the cutting edge > of > reality", which, to me, is the chisel that carves finite being out > of the > undifferentiated "otherness" that surrounds us. The otherness that > we > "carve up" is Essence less the sensibility of our experiential > awareness, > and the "chisel" is the nothingness of the subjective self which > delineates > all things as objects in accordance with its (our) proprietary > value-sensibility. > > As you can see, I think it is a mistake to dispense with subjects > and > objects for the sake of a grandiose "worldview". We can't escape > the fact > that existence is a differentiated system which we "co-create" and > participate in as individual subjects. Existence is our "reality" > as > value-sensible beings-aware, but it isn't metaphysical Reality, nor > is value > its ultimate source. Value doesn't exist unless it is realized, and > it is > the role of the sensible agent to bring value into the world as > beingness. > I interpret Plato's question to Phaedrus, "And what is good, > Phaedrus, and > what is not good -- need we ask anyone to tell us these things?" as > meaning > that the realization of value is subjective, not that "morality is > universal" as advanced by the Pirsigians. > > I hope this gives you some idea of how Value "fits into" my > Essentialist > ontology, and it's quite a different concept than MoQ's "primary > empirical > reality". While I can accept value as the essence of experiential > reality > and man's link to his ultimate source, without a sensible value > agent, > reality is meaningless. > > Welcome aboard, Willblake2, and thanks for the question. > > Essentially yours, > Ham MP ---- "Don't believe everything you think." 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/
