Hey Ham, On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 10:00 AM, Ham Priday <[email protected]> wrote: > > G'day, Mark -- > > > > On Mon, 8/22/2011 at 12:53 AM, "118" <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I have no idea how you can say that a world free of s/o has no >> free will. It is all free will in such a world. Of course there is a >> free >> agent, anybody who uses the word "I" has immediately agreed to >> such a thing. Else-wise they would be referring to themselves as >> "this servant" like some kind of misguided monk. > > At least we concur that there is a free agent which we can call the Self. > What I'm saying is that without a conscious subject (self) no value is > realized, hence free will is meaningless. (The reality of physical > "objects" is another matter; however, regardless of how these are > constructed, they are an essential part of our existential reality.)
Yes, we do concur there. Those that do not have not really thought it out, imo. I would qualify your statement above to say that value is interpreted by the Self. This does not mean that value does not exist outside of the Self for certainly others experience value as well. In fact value can be had by all, it is freely available. > > [Ham, previously]: >> >> I don't quite follow the logic of reversing the Protagoras axiom >> "Man is the measure of all things" to "Things are the measure of man." >> The fact that man's world is "provided to him" does not make the >> world a measure of his values or behavior. On the other hand, >> eliminating the agency of value denies man the sensible realization >> on which morality is based and IMO makes life meaningless. > > [Mark]: >> >> I have railed against Protagoras for many an eon. That two trees >> are separated by some distance, is not a creation of Man. Those >> trees are there, and man experiences them. What Protagoras is >> stuck in, is complete subjectivism. Kind of like the "brain in the vat" >> idea that leaves very little room for free will. Does man measure >> that something is Hot? Or is it hot and he experiences it? Your >> sensible agent must be given something measurable. Such a thing >> must therefore already have measurements. We cannot create >> these things. > > Okay, that brings up the "other matter" I referred to above. Those trees > are there BECAUSE man experiences them. This is the objectivization of > otherness that I call "actualization". All the empirical data for anything > in the experienced universe are derived from Essential Value. When we > differentiate this value by sensing it, we construct the objects that > represent it. Experiential reality is proprietary to each self as is the > value realized from experience. This seems like absolute subjectivism, which I do not care much for. I know you have a different sense of this, which I am trying to intuit, but so far I still believe that trees exist whether or not man is present. I simply cannot grant that level of importance to man. So, I would again qualify your statement to say Man experiences those trees because they are there, not the other way around. I think that the Self's perception that experience is singular to each man, I would agree if you were to say that. > > <snip> > > [Mark] >> >> The Self is a free agent, the body/brain is not. Have you ever tried >> to hold your breath forever? There is very little that is free about >> our thoughts occurring. What we do have freedom with is assigning >> an importance to those thoughts. Such a thing occurs outside of the >> physical. The self can absolutely act outside of causal criteria. We >> do it all the time. Ever change your mind for no reason what-so-ever? > > Glad to hear you say that. I even agree that "little is free about our > thoughts OCCURRING". However, since our experiential construct of realty is > valuistic and proprietary to each self, as a qualitative precept, each > self's reality is different from every other's. In other words, the > relation of a particular self (value-sensibility) to the essent (otherness) > is a unique experience. I am not sure how different our bodies' experiences are from each other. We are certainly able to converse in what seems like agreement on certain things like trees. We all develop from very similar DNA. If the small difference in DNA between us is able to make all the difference, then you know something that I do not. I would say, however, that we all deal with the body experience (by the Self) in different ways. Things that are important to you may not be important to me and visa versa. It is in this prioritization, or attitude towards, that the Self expresses itself. Everything else is simply robotic. However, that "attitude" makes all the difference. One person can be sad, whereas the other can be happy under exactly the same conditions and circumstances (difficult to prove scientifically I know), we see this in our every day life. Some people do not have enough money ever, others are satisfied. This kind of world view (pessimist v positivist, for example) is where we should be trying to improve ourselves, not in the physical toys of life, in my opinion. > > This may be an issue for another time. I'm more interested right now in the > "free agent" concept and the Pirsigians' opposition to it. It would appear > that I have your agreement that the agent itself is free to "assign > importance" (relative value) to what it apprehends. Causal criteria > notwithstanding, valuation is what Protagoras meant by "the measure of all > things". I am not sure if I am a Pirsigian, since such a thing has not been defined. If believing in a free agent makes me not one in your eyes, that is fine with me. However, creating these groupings does not really accomplish much, since as you stated, we all "see" things differently. The Grouping of people into two categories does not seem to lead anywhere significant. No, I am not a Democrat or a Republican or anything else, I am Me. > > Give that some contemplation, Mark, and see if it doesn't make sense in the > context of > an essential ontogeny actualized (differentated) by free agents. (I'll be > happy to entertain any alternative concepts you may wish to offer.) We agree in most things. I still cannot elevate man to the level of creator of things. As far as I am concerned, we are in the middle of a marvelous rainbow. We cannot create such a thing, it created us. However, the entirely personal sense of self is something we do agree on. Many years ago when I was in high-school, I developed a thought experiment to test if a soul did indeed exist. Here it is (I may have already presented it): Imagine if you will that we are so advance in science that we can create an exact replica of ourselves. With this conjectured ability we are seated in a chair facing a blank wall in a small cubicle, and made unconscious. The engineer then sets the buttons and performs the scans and does whatever it takes to create an exact copy of us in an identical cubicle who is also asleep. With the touch of a button, he wakes both of us up. Our eyes open and we see a blank white wall. Now we hear the engineer say "turn around and look out of the open end of the cubicle". We turn around and look. There are two possible outcomes to this turning and looking. 1. We see though two pairs of eyes, and therefore have double vision since both of us are looking at different things. 2. We only see though one pair of eyes, because the double (which is exact in every-way) is a different person. If you choose 1, you are a materialist If you choose 2, you are a spiritualist. Of course one can point out the various flaws and so forth, which is why it is a thought experiment. However, this type of thought can also lead on in many many directions as to what reality is. For example, Reality is only what is happening in this moment. This is of course where it took me after a while (along with a number of other thoughts and experiments). Bye Mark > > Valuistically speaking, > 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/md/archives.html > 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/md/archives.html
