[MD] Ham on Esthesia

[Platt Holden]

Ham - 

[P]
> >About the only difference I detect between Essence and Quality is in
> > the terms "experience" and "awareness." You use the former to express
> > the normal subject/object division in human perception whereas Pirsig
> > uses "direct experience" to describe what you call "pure awareness."
> >
> > Perhaps in my eagerness to find compatibility between your philosophy
> > and Pirsig's I have seen things that aren't there. I hope you will
> > show me where I have gone astray.

[H] 
> That's a diplomatic way of saying, where Ham may have gone astray.  But,
> as you know, I'm working independently of Pirsig and feel no obligation
> -- outside of this forum at least -- to "catch up" with this philosopher
> or try to conform with him.  I leave that to you folks.

Hmmm. No one is suggesting you should "catch up" or "conform" to 
Pirsig's philosophy. I meant nothing devious in attempting to reconcile 
your philosophy with his and am at a loss to understand why you find an 
ulterior motive in my comments.. 

> But I'll try to show you where I think "sensible awareness" differs from
> proprioceptive (body status) experience of the "sitting on a hot stove"
> variety.   (That's a "direct experience", all right; but it's an
> experience we can't have without the stove.)
> 
> Awareness includes more subtle sensibilities than pain.  It encompasses
> his response to and attraction for beauty, his yearning for truth and a
> cosmic connection, his need to master and enhance his environment, his
> compassion for or resentment of other individuals -- all of which depend
> on an objective otherness.  Then there's the intellectual or conceptual
> faculty -- dealing with math, logic and physical laws, which are also
> abstracted from his cognizance of otherness.  The very sense of
> being-in-the-world cannot exist in a vacuum; it requires the cognizance
> of a structured, objectified world.
> 
> In a nutshell, my contention is twofold:
> 
> 1.  Epistemologically, we are all sentient subjects of an objective
> reality. 2.  Logically, neither Quality nor Value can be the source of
> that reality.

Logically there is no difference between Quality, Value and Morality. 
All represent a preference for something over something else, including 
a preference over nothing. Your Essence obviously prefers that there be 
a world of sentient subjects of an objective reality. Otherwise, it 
wouldn't have bothered to become the Source of that world. Also you 
have stated, "Value is directly derived from Essence," and Essence has 
"value sensibility." I take this to mean that value is a fundamental 
characteristic of Essence. Pirsig says the same thing -- only 
emphasizes as the Source  the "value sensibility" of Essence.     

> To account for the appearance of differentiated existence, three
> explanations are usually offered:
> 
> 1.  It was always here.
> 2.  It was created from a primary source.
> 3.  It created itself from nothing.
> 
> I maintain that #3 is illogical, and that #1 and #2 are logically
> consistent with each other.
> 
> Furthermore, while the primary source may be conceived as having
> properties in common with, or exceptional to, those of the experienced
> world, application of Occam's razor and the logic of luminaries
> throughout history almost uniformly point to a single, undifferentiated
> Creator.  The simplest form of such a primary source is the "prime"
> form: Absolute Oneness.  But that Oneness must also have the
> potentiality to create; that is to say, it must be an "essence" rather
> than an "attribute" of something else.  There is no something else for
> Essence.  It is the self-contained "not-other".

And as you have intimated,  the Absolute Oneness must have "value 
sensitivity" in order to create. That's where you and Pirsig see eye to 
eye.

> > One thing we are in total agreement about: "We cannot explain man's
> > awareness on biological functions alone." Dawkins, Dennett, Wilson and
> > their acolytes still have a long way to go to explain how
> > consciousness emerges from a lump of meat.
> 
> You bet, Platt.  Proprietary awareness is not a byproduct of biological
> evolution.  I included this quotation by Philadelphia Inquirer columnist
> John Timpane in the introduction to my thesis: "All this new
> neurobiology can make people feel as if they are being turned into
> machines or hunks of baloney."
> 
> Unfortunately, for all his alleged overcoming of duality, Mr. Prisig has
> not shown us how it is supposed to benefit the individual.

He has not overcome duality -- just the subject/object form of it. 
He has shown us that the greatest value is freedom with the just enough 
order necessary to prevent devolution into chaos. To reaffirm that 
philosophically is beneficial to the individual don't you think?

Best regards,
Platt