Hi Willblake --
What I was asking with my question was: Does Value grow from the inside out, or shape from the outside in. Does our reason grow in response to Quality, or create Quality. If it is thought that our reason is a manifestation of Value, then it sounds like Taoism, which I can understand. If Value is indeed directional, that is, shows a preference which can be felt by our sensibilities, then I will need to continue looking for its manifestations. These can perhaps be found in its apparent subjective contradictions (ying yang) that appear on the surface.
I'll try to answer your questions, although I'm not sure I understand them. It would appear that you are treating Value as the "agent" of existence rather than its essence. In my philosophy, it isn't Value that grows, but the subject's (agent's) value-sensibility or realization. "Inside" and "outside" are existential terms like "before" and "after", and Value is not an existent. Any "shaping" that occurs is the work of individual experience and intellection, not Value.
I would not say that reason is a manifestation of Value, nor do I believe that Value "shows a preference" or is intellectual in nature. Again, it's the sensible agent who is preferential and makes choices. Reason grows in response to relational experience, and (like logic) is usually based on the principle of cause-and-effect. But I'm troubled by your need to "look for manifestations" of Value. All of your experiences are manifestations of Value. In fact, they're actualized by Value. You can't avoid Value as a sentient being.
In Michael's 3/16 post to me, he suggested a concept which may help you understand what I mean by Value. He asked: "Isn't your 'Value' what it is just a by-product of sensing agents being able to sense something?" Michael is right. Value is created the moment that an individual becomes aware of an otherness beyond himself. That is to say, WE bring value into the world as discrete objects and events in time and space. The very essence of our "being-aware" is value-sensibility. We experience Value relationally as the desire for, or dislike of, various aspects of finitude which constitute our being in the world. We can nurture our sensibility to better appreciate the sanctity of life, the beauty of music and art, the wonders of nature, or the value of individual freedom and social morality. Or we can live out our lives as drones, oblivious of anything beyond the amenities and the survival instinct. As free agents of Value the choice is ours.
Does that help to clarify my concept of Value, and why I prefer it over Pirsig's four evolutionary levels of Quality? Hopefully, you will no longer have to search the teachings of Taoism for what is really the essence of your experience.
Thanks again for your query. Best wishes, Ham _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Greetings, Willblake -- I haven't had the pleasure. (Do I call you Will or Mark?)
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 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/
