There is always an end to any drop, unless you're in a black hole. Newton knew that even tho he didn't know any black holes and he didn't know the Big Dipper at the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz neither. but if he hadn't invented gravity, neither would work as we know they do, so props to Sir Isaac.
On the Big Dipper, after the swoop into darkness and sudden banging turns therein, the bottom is reached and a brief moment of respite comes as a relief. The first impressions are of the sight and sound of the glimmering and twinkling reflections from the constantly moving chain which attaches and pulls the cars at the bottom and whose constant clanking, along with intermittent screams, defines roller coaster noise. The walls of the enclosing wooden cave allow us only the tunnel vision of the bright track and clanking chain and the wooden walkway and railing along side the soon to be rising train of cars. And of course, the cars themselves and the fellow passengers are revealed in the light. In our metaphysical journey there is likewise a bottom. A place where you arrive after diving as deep as you can go under the surface of things. A place where you know you can't go any deeper. But like the roller coaster ride, this place is not invented, but discovered. Just as I did not build these tracks or manufacture these cars, I find myself in my meta-speculations confronted with the fact that I didn't invent this language or formulate the rules of logic which keep me riding along in my thoughts. You have to take what is presented. You can think about the car you are in, but you can't think your way off the car you are in. Even if you decide that the language/logic paradigm that drives you forward is going to a place you don't want to go, you must acknowledge that anywhere you are going is a continuation of where you have been and that connection of history controls to an extent what comes next. And yet there resides alongside this momentous momentum, there is a choice to be made. It resides in my self. Here we go, getting higher, it is what makes me self. The ability to choose, even make foolish choices like jumping off the train or into the already full car behind me, the ability to choose is always present. It is this choice, which defines "me", my mind, my consciousness, my intellect. Not just the choice, but the ability to choose. Even the thought that there is a choice reveals an opportunity to believe, or not believe in my own ability to choose, and thus proves that self is self-evident even as choice is self-evident. The main difference I see between life and non-living is the ability to choose, this path or that. Thus this "choosing" ability is in every case a definition of other selves around me. This is what starts to drag me out of the bottom. But this would not take me far if there was not something to choose from - an outside world of presented facts exists for me to decide upon. We keep climbing, more becomes obvious, we pass obstacles such as the wooden tunnel walls and soon we can see more of where we have been, more of where we are and more of where we are going. For if choice is absolutely a component of self-hood, there not only must be something extrinsic to choose from, there must be some standard by which to choose. You can't truly choose if there is no value system *by* which to choose. A self without values is like a roller coaster in space. No up and down makes a roller coaster meaningless and no good and bad makes a self meaningless, or obviates the self, even as choosing to believe that free will is an illusion, obviates the self. A guy can say he doesn't exist, and believe it, and it becomes true for him. Likewise, a guy can say there is no such thing as free will. He has chosen a certain way of looking at things which is self-demonstrably true in that he has chosen to forget that he has a choice in how he looks at things. Still a choice, but a self-obviating one. Quiet reflection leads to a way out of darkness. For every thinker who has reached a metaphysical bottom, there is a thinker who subsequently climbs to the well-lit tops. We shall consider two disparate thinkers, Josiah Royce and Robert Pirsig as we analyze this climb together, and the way they both addressed this idea of the self and other being defined by values. They were definitely in different cars, but they climbed the same mountain. Pirsig's story you know pretty well. Let me tell you Royce's. Royce always knew he wanted to be a philosopher. He started philosophy young in the same way Phaedrus started science young. With an intensity and purpose to get to the top. There was a lot to plow through. Mid to late 19th century intellectualism was nearing its apex. He grew up in San Francisco and went to Berkley when it was just starting out and didn't even offer courses in philosophy. So he went to Germany and learned German. Good move, for a philosopher in those days, Germans were world leaders in philosophical thinking. Royce came back, got his Dr. and a good job at Harvard teaching english and freshman comp and contemplated his metaphysical bottom. Like Phaedrus, waiting for certain dilemmas to be solved, waiting for the first flash of light ready to lead him out of that darkness. As you know, for Phaedrus it came when he came to the question, "What is Quality?" And you know the rest of that story. For Royce, wrestling with skepticism which sees possibility for error in almost any line of mentality, it came when he asked himself, "What is Error?" And then proceeded to demonstrate logically the absolute irrefutable existence of error. Rock solid concrete, right there, and then using all his knowledge and abilities, what the existence of error implies - a transcendant Value in which we have our context and being. And went to the top of his mountain. You should read him sometime. So as we near the top, we have sight already of what it will look like when we get there. We can see pretty much everything there is to be seen from the top, even if we haven't quite apexed yet. Value is generating our experience, we have metaphysical assurance and more faith than ever that the rickety thing isn't going to fall apart - confirmation from more than one source. So far it has been a steady one-way pull up to where everything is clear and obvious. All the forces are in a statically-held dynamic tension and peace and tranquility alongside a certain nervous excitement. No screams. Yet. 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/
