[MD] Protagoras and "Measure"

[John Carl]

Greetings Ham,


I'm rather turned on right now,  in typical flower child fashion, by my
readings of Royce and his World of Appreciation vs. the World of
Description.  I'd like to show you what I've found, if you wouldn't mind,
but I think I'll start another thread and keep it straight that way.


John prev:

What does "independent existence"  look like and how do you
>> know it is real?
>>
>
> You're looking at it.  You assume it's "real" because it's the only reality
> you experience.
>


Yes, but us flower kids have access to more realitys than you squares, ya
know.  Alternate realities.  Way alternate.



>
> While we both experience an objective world with a common history and
> properties, it's self-evident that my awareness is not the same as yours.



Right on!  That's what I'm saying.   So how do we know we are or are not
experiencing differing "realities"?  Here is where Royce's World of
Appreciation enters, and describe things nicely.  Also harmonizes well with
your "valuing agent", I believe.



> It should also be self-evident that the experienced world of beingness is
> not the self that knows it.  Rather, the objective world appears to exist
> apart from the Knower as a self-sustained system of its own, whether we
> exist or not.  That makes our existence as "knowers" independent of the
> world's existence as "being".  You will say this is just SOM speak, and
> that's true.  Existence--the universe we inhabit--is divided into subjective
> "selves" and objective "otherness".  It takes such a duality (dichotomous
> contingency) to make the world exist.  And although we depend on this
> natural world for our existence, our awareness of it is independent of its
> being.
>

NOT.  Not completely, anyway.  Our awareness is wedded to an existence apart
from ourselves that is neither independent, nor completely dependent, but
rather give and take, ebb and flow, that could be analogized as dancing.  We
choose which parts of "reality" we want to experience.  We choose how our
experience is filtered.  We don't choose our cultural context, so much, but
we can view the panoply of cultures around the globe and easily deduce that
there is a great variety of experience.

No, I can't say I've read it.  I assume the fisherman who wrote it grew up
> in the flower-child generation who were attracted to books like ZAMM.  But I
> see they're making it into a movie, and I think I'll wait to see that before
> purchasing any more Pirsig-related books.
>

It doesn't seem to me the kind of book that could be captured by a movie
very well.  The best parts of the book are asides and stories and
philosophizing.  The movie will probably focus on Eddy taking off her skin
tight t shirt and diving in after her catch.

sigh.

But I'll probably see it.  Depending on who they get to play Eddy.

John