Case --
> Isn't "awareness without an object" just awareness, or awareness of > awareness. It certainly isn't nothing. Nothing is nothing. If there is no > object what is it that is aware? If there is something that is aware, then > it is not nothing. If empirical means accessible to the senses then > certainly the self is nothing if not empirical. Awareness of awareness is a mirror looking at its own image. Such a tautology does not exist. Nor does "pure" awareness, which is a nothing without its referent object. In every example of awareness we can cite from experience, awareness is the proprietary (subjective) sensibility of an other. Even self-awareness is the proprietary awareness of the identity "self". This defines the dichotomy of experiential existence: Awareness + Otherness. If existence is the experience of objects and events in time and space, and the physiological self is one of the objects, then everything that is experienced exists except for the subject that is aware of it. Subjective awareness is set apart from its objective otherness, yet is co-dependent on it for the appearance of existence. Awareness is not an existent: it can't be localized, quantified, or objectively observed. Therefore, by my definition, awareness does not exist. Now, of course, you can argue that some of the things we are aware of -- morality, freedom, love, pain, etc. -- are not existents either. And you would be correct. These are values; and all awareness begins by differentiating value. The individual, in the primary, pre-experiential sense, is value-awareness. It represents the negation of all "beingness". In other words, the "pre-intellectual" self (as Pirsig might define it) is not a being. It is a nothingness seeking the value of otherness for itself. By acquring (affirming) this value for itself, the subjective self becomes a being-aware-of-otherness as objects, and (presto!) differentiated existence appears. I submit that this ontology is not only compatible with existentialism, but not too far removed from Mr. Pirsig's concept of experience as the basis of empirical reality. (At least he would agree with us that the cognizant self is a "fiction".) Thanks for the opportunity, Case. 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/
