Dear Craig -- When I asked you to tell me where I've lost you, you replied:
Valuing...impossibility. Not to be rude, but I did not understand one sentence. You seem to know what you mean, but I would need some examples in order to catch up. For instance, "the essence of that reality which is sensed as Value": What about the reality which is NOT sensed as Value? Does it have an essence? If so how do we distinguish the two essences?
Okay, you were lost from the git-go. I shall have to be more specific, but I can't offer "examples" until you understand the fundamentals.
First of all, there is but one Essence, and it is Reality Itself. Everything else is either a reflection of Essence or some valuistic construct of the mind. All sensibility is Value sensibility' and, as Pirsig says, "what has no value does not exist." But Essence is infinitely more than what human beings are capable of sensing.
Or "Valuing, experiencing, and intellectualizing (translating) are all aspects of a single process called Consciousness, and the entire process is subjective (meaning proprietary to the individual)...the subjective agent (self) is not [essential]." If the "entire process is subjective" wouldn't that mean "the subjective agent (self) IS essential"?
Subjectivity may be "essential" to existents like you and me, but not to the absolute Source. I know it's a hard truth to swallow. Look at it this way: Human beings are passing reflections of the greater reality that is their source. Shadows and reflections are mere "effects" of Essence, like the images in your mind. Metaphysically, all otherness is a negation of the Source which is 'Not-other'. That was Cusa's theorem, and it makes perfect sense from the essentialist's point of view.
Here's another analogy that may help. Human beings are "borrowed property" from the moment they are born into the world. Our physical bodies and biological functions are dependent on and sustained by "Being" which we don't create but inherit from Nature. Our thoughts and feelings mirror the interaction of experienced things and events we don't control. We live on borrowed time in a state of health determined mainly by genetics, acquiring knowledge, property and wealth that we "can't take with us" through the exit door. How can such meager lives be essential by any standard?
But there's a brighter side to this story. We are value-sensible creatures, and Value IS essential, because it's that aspect of Essence which we affirm with each and every experience life brings us. If the truth be told, Value is the essence of our reality. It is man's link to the Not-other whose brightness our lives reflect.
Hopefully I've shed some light on the philosophy of Essence here, some of which may get through.
Thanks for your continued interest and patience, Craig. 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/
