[MD] Is Morality innate in the cosmos?

[Michael Hamilton]

Ham,

Sorry for the long delay in responding - I haven't had access to my
computer for several days, as I've been away visiting my grandparents.

Before that, I made some headway with your thesis, and found much to
agree with. However, I'm still having trouble understanding some of
your terminology.

I've taken the liberty of juggling with the order of the things you
said in your last post, so that we can deal with the more important
things first. If you think I've neglected anything important, please
say so.

> Mike:
> > Sorry to have to ask another question, but by
> > "physical existence", do you mean matter?
> > Or, by "beyond physical existence", do you mean
> > beyond experience of any kind?
>
> Both.  Existence is our experienced physical reality.

I think I agree, but there's an ambiguity in that statement. Rather
than existence being an independent physical reality that we just
happen to experience (which could possibly be inferred from "existence
is our experienced physical reality"), I say that existence is the
experience itself. "Physical reality", i.e. 'independent' objects that
we imagine in order to explain experience, become part of our
experience as we imagine them, so can be said to exist as and when
they are part of consciousness/experience.

> It is constituted of
> matter (substance or beingness) and proprietary awareness (sensibility or
> consciousness).

Looks like Descartes to me. Or is there some nuance that
differentiates this dualism from the Cartesian mind/matter? In any
case, I would object that matter or substance is not a necessary or
fundamental component of existence, but exists in as much as we hold
it 'in mind' as we go about our lives (as we nearly always do from
when we reach a certain age, because it is such a useful fiction). I
should add that by "imagined" or "fictitious" I do not necessarily
mean "illusory" or "unreal" (you know that I accept subject/object
dualism as the current mode of our experience); I just mean that it is
not fundamental or necessary.

> Existence is an individuated subject looking at a universal
> object.

So far I understand what you're saying (although I may disagree with
it), but after this point I'm struggling to comprehend.

> What separates the two is nothingness.  In experience, this
> nothingness is converted to Value -- specifically, the value negated by
> Essence to create this dichotomy.  Essence remains undivided, encompassing
> all such differentiation as the absolute Not-other.

One barrier to my understanding of your thesis might be my ignorance
of Hegel, and the concept of "negation", which you seem to use
heavily. To my, at best rudimentary, understanding, negation is what
occurs at each step of Hegel's dialectic, i.e. the thesis is negated
by the antithesis, and then this negation is negated by a synthesis
between the thesis and the antithesis.

So, when you say that value is negated by Essence, I can only
interpret this as saying that  Essence is the antithesis of value.
This leaves me thinking that Essence and value are opposites, but this
can't be what you mean, because Essence is the Not-other that
encompasses all differentiation. Essence is not other to value. What
am I missing?

> Mike:
> > And is "valuistic attribute of human feeling or sensibility"
> > roughly equivalent to a "tack-on" or "decorative ornament",
> > limited exclusively to human beings?
>
> No.  The value we sense represents our true essence.  If anything is a
> "decorative ornament", it is the so-called "natural world".

Well said.

> While lesser
> creatures are capable of sensing value in a rudimentary way, their "choices"
> are directly related to their survival instincts.

Again, well said.

> Only man is capable of
> rising above this causally-directed behavior.  Self-determination is unique
> to man; he is the Choicemaker of the universe.

I agree with the spirit of this, i.e. that value is common to all
animals but the human sense of value contains greater possibilities
for choice, and can be less confined to survival instincts.

I only take issue with the word "causally-directed", because I take
causation to be part of the mechanistic, so-called "natural world",
which I think we agreed is more an "ornament" (although I hardly
consider it to be decorative!) than a fundamental aspect of existence.
Therefore I would rather say that "lesser creatures" are directed by
their narrow, rudimentary sense of value, i.e. their survival
instincts.

> I also believe that consciousness is the valuation of experience.  But so
> what?  There is no rationale for meaning or purpose in this belief.  All it
> suggests is that we prefer what appeals to us, what comforts us, what seems
> better to us.  Unless this desideristic attribute is tied to a primary
> source as part of an overall ontology, it is meaningless.

you continued....
> Value itself isn't a sense of meaning; it's simply the sense of something
> desired or wanted.

Desire and need are basic, rudimentary senses of meaning, from which
more subtle and sophisticated meanings can grow, with the aid of
language.

> This isn't to say that man's discriminating choice of
> values doesn't have a teleological purpose.  But it can have no meaning for
> man if he is not aware of its purpose.  Where does Pirsig explain man's
> valuistic connection to a creator or source other than Quality?

He doesn't, because for Pirsig, Value/Quality (which I claim is
synonymous with Meaning) IS the creator, IS the source.

Lastly, could you point me to any crucial parts of your thesis that I
should prioritise? I'm eager to understand the basic tenets of
Essentialism, but I won't have time to finish reading the entire
thesis in the near future.

Regards,
Mike