On Monday, Dec 28, 2009 at 4:49 PM, John Carl wrote:
[In reference to Ham's "analytical experience]:
Oh. Is that what I've been trying to do?
I'll concede I'm aware of objectifying Pure Value, with analogies
of gravity and magnetic north and all, but I don't see anywhere
that I'm objectifying it as analytical experience.
Analytical experience is a special kind of experience, that Pure Value
does not submit to without losing everything that makes it Pure.
Exactly. So you don't experience it. You experience only difference,
epistemologically the differentiation of Value into finite phenomena
experienced as objects of being.
But even though the term annoys me, lets postulate a Pure Experience
which precedes analytic objectification, and yet remains within the
realm of human perception. For all intents and purposes, we can
deem this "reality" or at least "reality as we know it" and be home in
time for lunch. So why don't we?
For the reason you cited above. Human beings are not wired to experience
pure, non-objectified Value. Metaphysically, a being cannot partake of the
Absolute. We are created separately from our absolute source, and our
value-sensibility is finite and relational, just as our universe is.
[Ham]:
As I just told Marsha, ALL experience is differentiated,
objectivized, patterned.
[John]:
Can I imagine an experience that is not? A mind floating in empty
space, without any input, like a patient in a seeming coma on a table,
with consciousness, but no differentiation, no patterns outside the
cognizant self, no objects to be perceived except the self-as-object;
does this count still as experience?
Maybe. But certainly not a very high quality experience. And there's the
real issue, imho.
I do not count imagination as "experience". Experience always has a
referent in otherness. Besides, even with no external sensory input, you
experience your bodily functions proprioceptively. As a human being, you
constantly experience somatic temperature, pressure, breathing, hunger,
pain, etc., not to mention self-awareness. Even in a comatose state you
cannot isolate yourself from your physical body.
It ain't the experience of your Quality, but the quality of your
Experience that matters.
I think that's true, or I wouldn't be an essentialist. But where does that
lead us?
Just kidding. Sometimes these rhetorical flourishes just
insert themselves. They're both the same, far as I can tell.
[Ham]:
The so-called "pre-intellectual experience" is not an experience at all.
[John]:
Well we diverge here. I firmly believe in pre-intellectuality.
So many times the example is brought forth of knowing something
is good before you can even put it into words, or have even
figured out why. Or knowing it's bad, for that matter.
I agree with Pirsig here. This pre-intellectual awareness is
the most significant Experience there is.
Agreed. But that isn't EXPERIENCE, John. It's sensibility to Value. What
is good and what is bad is a moral or esthetic judgment based on individual
value-sensibility. We don't experience this Value; its sensibility is our
nature or essence. As I said before, value-sensibility is your essential
nature. You can only experience what is derived or constructed from this
primary sensibility.
Oh wait. I see what you're saying then. You're saying this
pre-intellectual experience is significant, it is something, it's just
something different than experience. You want to call it
value-sensibility
instead of experience. I fail to see any reason for making that
distinction. Sensing value is an experience. Life is experience.
Let's go to lunch.
[Ham continues]:
Creatures are not equipped to experience undifferentiated or absolute
Value, but value-sensiblity is intrinsic to the human being.
[John]:
Well I don't see any reason for that formulation. If I can't experience,
it doesn't exist for me. Simple and done. No need for extraneous
filigree like I see all over the Victorian mansions around here.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in
your philosophy.
Ultimate reality is not part of your experience, so it doen't exist for you.
That's taking a rather narrow perspective of reality, isn't it? Where is
your reality when you cease experiencing and revert to the nothingness from
which you came? Have you ever considered that?
The minute you sense value, you're in an experience. Whatever your
experience, you're sensing values. That's not merely a rhetorical
flourish
it's rock solid foundational concrete, baby. Give it a slump of say... 3
1/2 inches. That's the ground of our existence and I don't see why you
want to separate out and precede one with the other.
I don't catch your drift (or "slump") here. The moment your sense value you
actualize or create experience. This makes you aware of being in the world.
It's hardly what I would call a
"rock solid" empirical fact, but it is a logically plausible proposition.
Beyond that, I'm unable to follow you. I don't know what you mean by
wanting "to separate out and precede one with the other." Could you be more
explicit?
[Ham concludes]:
[Value] also affords us the autonomy to choose those values with which we
are
"in tune" esthetically, morally, and emotionally. This is what I refer
to
elsewhere as our "value complement," and it makes each individual unique
in his/her relation to Essence.
[John]:
Well this clues me in to your reason for your reasoning, and brings
us back to a fundamental difference between your Anthropocentric
Essentialism and my Roycean Idealism, the problem of choice in a
value-oriented cosmos. So I'll digest this "autonomy" to choose those
values with which we are "in tune" for a bit and get back to you.
You do that, John. One point of clarification before you do: the cosmos
isn't value-oriented, WE are. Try to remember that the essence of a human
being is value-sensibility. It is we who bring value into the world as
existential reality.
Pleasant dreams.
--Ham
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