[MD] meaning, awareness and understanding

[Ham Priday]

Kevin and Scott --


 Kevin said:
> Several current threads appear to be connected in that they
> ask the question which came first?  What's much less
> fuzzy are the answers.  The arguments are very definite.
> Step away from the source of everything, whether God,
> Dynamic Quality or Essence, and you find arguments that
> say meaning proceeds from something less indefinable
> but no less elusive, e.g., Grace, pre-intellectual
> awareness, actualized Essence (sorry Ham if I got this
> wrong).  The only thing they have in common is their
> claim to an overarching explanation.  Or do they?

When you ask the question "which came first?" you are referring to
actualized existence, since there is no first or last in the Source.
Meaning and Value are both subjective precepts, hence describe the
"being-aware" of existence.  I don't know what Grace is, unless it is meant
to suggest Goodness (Quality?) or Morality, which are also relative to
actualized existence.  If, by "overarching explanation" you mean an
all-encompassing principle without distinction, only Essence qualifies.

> When I began writing this I wanted to address what I saw
> as different explanations for the existence of meaning.
> And then it occurred to me that the different explanations
> I was seeing may not all be addressing the same thing.
>
> Meaning, awareness and understanding?
> They're not the same thing, are they?

They're related but not precisely the same.  Meaning is the intellectual
recognition that a given proposition or phenomenon has a purposeful or
intentional aspect.  Awareness is the subjective (proprietary) context in
which sensibility (of self and otherness) is experienced.  Understanding is
the intellectual comprehension or acceptance of a proposition or concept.

 Scott replied:
> I've been arguing that they are the same, that meaning
> (value) implies awareness, and implies intellect (and --
>  as per the MOQ, both awareness and intellect imply
> value). That value implies awareness seems to me a
> no-brainer. That it implies intellect comes from the
> phrase "static pattern of value". Intellect is the creation
> and processing of patterns -- no intellect then no pattern
> -- if one assumes that all patterns are "of value". ...
> So what I am saying is that any such reaction is
> meaningful only with respect to some context, but all
> reactions are within some contextual pattern, and to
> fit the particular within the general pattern is intellect.

I don't agree that implicating is the same as equating.  You are talking
about several different functions here which really cannot be equated to
each other.  I would rephrase your statement so as to define the
interrelation of these attributes rather than trying to equate them.  For
example: Meaning and value both pre-suppose awareness because they are
cognitive precepts.

Although I fail to see how the phrase "static pattern of value" implies
intellect, I'll accept your assertion that intellect is the creation and
processing of patterns.  However, the remainder of your analysis has me
mystified.  "That any such reaction is meaningful only with respect to some
context, but all reactions are within some contextual pattern..."  Forgive
me for not fully comprehending Pirsig's "patterns" concept, but what is this
supposed to mean?

--Ham