Hey, Mark --
As you know, I am in tune with free choice. I would just not
use it as an argument for creating morality. Our choice is in which
morality to follow. In my sense of things, such morality already
exists. The code of behavior is a rationalization of what would be
termed an irrational awareness of an existing thing. I do not see
the concept of imposition. Since we are Quality, there is not
higher authority that I can think of. Perhaps this is a difference
between my Quality and yours.
Yes, Quality is a perfect entity, expressed perfectly in the moment.
But I am fine with your otherness as well, since it can be reduced to
the same thing.
Let's assume that your Quality is what I mean by Value. (For that matter,
it could be Goodness, Betterness, or Virtue.)
Have you ever heard the old adage "Opposites attract"?
For some time now, I've been trying to get across the point that we cannot
BE Quality and at the same time EXPERIENCE Quality. Experience is
individually differential in that we always experience what is other to us.
Thus, we don't experience our selves, per se; self-awareness is the
pre-intellectual awareness that WE are the cognizant locus of an "otherness"
reality, the "being" of which takes many forms. Beingness also is
differentiated by the properties of quality, quantity, and relation. And
(as I noted to Marsha) no single phenomenon or "thing" has these properties
in the same combination as any other.
You yourself have observed that Difference is the sine qua non of existence.
Yet, when you say "we are Quality" and "otherness can be reduced to the same
thing", you equate the Quality, Value, or Virtue of otherness which attracts
to the self that is attracted. Since this is epistemologically impossible,
I have posited value-sensibility (quality-sensibility?) as the 'negate' in
the subject/object relationship, considering everything else as an
"existent'. While you challenge my negation theory to account for the
emergence of the negate, I return your challenge by asking how Subject A can
be attracted to Object A when both contingents are Quality.
As you know, I have a hard time conceiving that we are separate
from Nature. I am not sure what part of us would be separated,
except for the soul. This I do believe to be true, but the sieve is
our bodies which are part of nature. Nature can of course be
extended to include everything including the soul. So, depending
on the semantics, Nature, Quality, Essence, could all be one thing
that is differentiated. And, as you know, I do not see the need for
"another side".
These thoughts also trouble me, Mark. That's why I've defined the human
individual as a "being-aware". Inasmuch as the psyche or "soul" cannot be
separated from its organic body, the individual is in effect a dichotomy of
Awareness and Beingness. This is consistent with the primary Self/Other
dichotomy from which differentiated existence is actuated.
Most important for the Essentialist (and, I would hope, for the Qualityist)
is that this dichotomy is not only accountable for the differentiation
(i.e., contrariety) of experiential existence, but the affinity of its
contingencies for each other. For it is Value (the power of attraction)
which holds Self and Other together. And because Value is a sensible aspect
of the Essential Source, it can never be lost in the metaphysical scheme of
things. That, my friend, is the need for the "other side" to Value.
Would you say that existence is provided us by Essence? Or are
we at odds with such a thing? This is all that I mean by provided us.
That is, that it exists and we can take part in it.
That existence is provided (created) is part of the scheme. I suspect you
are "at odds" with this teleology, Mark; I have no reservation about it.
Whether one holds to a Big Bang, multi-universe, or eternal universe theory,
an uncreated source is essential. I do not see Quality (Value) as an 'a
priori' entity or force, insofar it can exist only by virtue of a sensible
agent. Neither Sensibility nor Value "exists" independently in Essence;
rather, Essence is the absolute unity of these functions.
I sincerely hope you will find the means to "harmonize" with this concept,
Mark. You won't get it from the Pirsigians.
Thanks, as always, for your insightful inputs,
Ham
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