Ok Ham, Gingerly and step by step we go:
Me Prev: I see this as our main point of difference: If the cosmos isn't >> value-oriented, then why are we? Where do values come from, >> if not the cosmos? >> > > Ham's reply: > What is the cosmos but "an orderly harmonious system" that our experience > constructs? > John rants on: Yes, exactly. And how is order decided? How is harmony determined? These are just other words for Quality, for value, and when you talk about experience doing the constructing, well part of this experience is sensory input and choices of perception made according to the same laws of order and harmony you assert. So it's all Values of harmony and order and Quality, all the way down, through and through. What we experience and how we experience are ultimately inseperable. Ham: > What are we but the cognizant sensibility of a reality whose essence > surpasses our understanding? John: What are we but cognizant sensibility? The reality we sense is part of us. Postulating an essence beyond our understanding seems to be a focus for you Ham, something you wish to grasp, and contain, and put into your pocket with a label, definition and epistemelogically oriented erudition. But even if you had that, would you be happy? > Why do we feel the need to capture this essence and possess it for > ourselves? Why is it that in our life struggle to achieve contentment the > essence of reality always eludes us? > This really made me think. It made me think that contentment isn't all it's cracked up to be. It made me think contentment is the enemy because when we're content, we stop striving and when we stop striving, we're as static as a corpse. It made me contented to be so discontented at times. > > Put it all together and you have what the sophisticates call "desideratum." > The dictionary defines it as "something desired as essential", but ordinary > people like us understand it as the longing or craving for that which we do > not have but fervently seek. Socrates expressed this feeling thusly: "The > man who desires something desires what is not available to him, and what he > doesn¹t already have in his possession; and what he neither has nor himself > is - that which he lacks - this is what he wants and desires." Sartre was > more explicit about man being "found wanting". "We want the being of the > other for ourselves," he said. If that sounds like Value to you, Bingo! > > It sounds like what Royce calls, Interpretation. It sounds like community. > > You are so close to grasping the truth of my ontogeny that you're circling > around it, as if you fear it will scorch you. Let me guide you safely to > the central proposition. > > For sensibility to exist as a free agent, it must be "individualized", that > is, negated or separated from the uncreated source. This creates a negate > (self-awareness) which initally seeks comfort and nourishment from its > mother, but quickly becomes aware of an otherness external to itself. In > short order, otherness is experienced as a world that exists independently > of the subjective self. Throughout its life, the individual learns to > acquire the comfort, nourishment, and satisfaction it desires from this > experiential world (cosmos), perhaps never realizing that these values > represent objectively the affinity of the subject for its estranged Essence. > You call that guiding? Whew! It looks like going around in circles to me. A circle with a radius exactly the length of my being and no bigger. I follow you till we get to "negates" and "estranged Essence". Then I'm lost. Those seem like bulky concepts designed to fill out a package, or Victorian filligree with no real structural purpose other than fanciness for fanciness sake. Something I've never fancied, myself. > > Instead of wanting "the being of the other for ourselves", as the > existentialists postulated, we want to reclaim the Essence of otherness > which, to us, is Value because that is all we are sensible of. So that, > through experience and intellection, we actualize the universe as an ordered > system of relational "beings" (objective phenomena) that represent what is > left of the other when we incrementally add its values to our existential > void. In simpler words, we create being by extracting Essential Value from > otherness to supplant our own nothingness. Fewer words, but not simpler. Supplanting my nothingness sounds to me as illusory as "unpatterned experience". If you're content with it, ok. But I don't see how anybody could be. But maybe that's good. >> >> So far it appears we are not drifting closer. >> > > Oh, but I think we are. You are already using my terminology, whether you > realize it or not, and are raising questions that indicate a reluctance to > "settle in", which I would expect at this juncture. Incidentally, finitude > connotes a state or condition of finite entities rather than simply a system > bounded by limited space. Ok. I can grasp finitude. John: I like my reality to be the size of my experience, it's all I can handle >> in the moment, and yet it expands as my experience does without >> forseeable limit. >> >> What more could I desire? >> > > > I don't know. Why don't you tell me. We can desire everything we can > experience, as well as what we can't. Since we create our own experience, > yet still desire more, doesn't this suggest there is something beyond > experience that attracts us? > > Desire is an experience; how could it transcend experience? > > As I've said before, you're almost there John. All you have to do is > remove the artificial hurdles you've set up to test my credibility. > > Scarey thought Ham, the way you put it. I'd say it was just the opposite. *I'm* not the one using obfuscatory erudition on purpose. I'm just a plain and simple guy trying to keep my desires within my experience and expand the radius of my being at a natural pace. I do feel a growing fondness for the ways you stretch me and my radius. Wishing for more in the new year, And much dancing under a blue moon, John 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/
