[MD] Probability

[Platt Holden]

Hi Ham,

Thanks for your further explications of "negation." I was taken by a 
sudden flash of illumination of your meaning of the term when you 
described it as "rejection" and "filtering out." Thus, negation means 
"ignore,"disregard," "overlook", "tune out," "pay no attention to," 
etc. Is that correct? Also, you explication reminded me of what little 
I know of Gestalt Theory which in essence :-) rests on the figure-
ground phenomenon, i.e. that the same outline can be perceived as 
different alternate figures, with very different shapes. Are you 
conversant with Gestalt Theory?

Thanks again Ham for another valiant effort. I least this time I think 
I got a glimmer of understanding of your views. It's still tough 
sledding for me, though.

Best regards,
Platt

> Platt [Dan Glover mentioned]--
> 
> (You can file this as Ham's second dissertation on negation theory.)
> 
> When I last left you, Reinier had defined the condition of experiential
> existence to be a "duality" in which 'A' always presumes 'not A'.  This
> suggested "choice", i.e., the decision to experience 'A' or not to
> experience 'A'.  But I wasn't looking for a "duality of choice"; I was
> looking for a "dichotomy of intellection".  What I envisioned was the
> intellect operating as a "negator", like Essence.  Essence creates
> otherness by negating nothingness.  This difference creates the
> self-other dichotomy. Intellection creates being by negating otherness. 
> This is what differentiates experience.  But because pure otherness is
> unrecognizable to the finite intellect, it apprehends only the otherness
> that corresponds to its value sensibility at a given moment.  It does
> this by negating all the rest (of otherness).
> 
> So when I read Dan Glover's post of 3/17, I knew I had found the
> differentiating dichotomy I was looking for.  Dan said:
> 
> > This reminds me of Buckminster Fuller's work.
> > All forms have what he called complementaries...
> > the form of a triangle (for example) isn't simply one
> > triangle. Rather (according to Fuller) it is actually two
> > triangles ...the triangle delineated by the area inside
> > the lines, and a second triangle delineated by the area
> > outside the lines. This second triangle negates the first
> > ...one would not exist without the other.
> 
> When I observe a visual figure delineated by three connecting lines, I
> recognize it intellectually as a triangle.  I also become subjectively
> aware of the values this figure imparts to my sensibility -- its shape,
> symmetry, color, and relevance to other triangular-shaped objects
> recalled from memory, especially my introduction to this geometric form.
>  Like most people, I learned to identify a triangle by the shape of the
> area inside the lines, disregarding what may lie outside the lines.  But
> I might also have learned it as an infinite plane with a tri-cornered
> hole in its center. This would of course reverse the visual values
> imparted to me by the normal experience of a triangle.  In fact, I could
> not experience both triangles simultaneously because, as Fuller states,
> the second triangle would negate the first.  Yet, if we eliminate the
> subjective values of this experience, a triangle is still objectively
> (intellectually) a visual figure delineated by three connecting lines.
> 
> What's the metaphysical significance of this observation?  You'll recall
> that I've defined the objects of experience as "universal", meaning that
> they are universally recognizable, quantifiable, and localizable in the
> space/time world.  Objects are "beings"; that is, they are perceived as
> finite forms of a substance called "matter", and the data we've gleaned
> from them comprise the vast body of intellectual knowledge.  There's one
> hitch to objective knowledge, however: being and awareness are
> co-dependent contingencies.  We can't have being unless it can be made
> aware.  And awareness is proprietary to the individual, which means that
> being is contingent upon one's awareness of it.  In short, being-aware
> defines the dichotomy of relational existence.
> 
> How do we become aware of being, then?  Would you believe it if I said
> that it comes from Value?  After all, Pirsig said that "Quality is the
> primary empirical reality of the world" and equivocated it with value in
> the statement: "...the very existence of subject and object themselves
> is deduced from the Value event."  What is the Value event?  I submit
> that it is the moment of differentiation that occurs when awareness
> captures the value of otherness.  Since finite sensibility can only
> grasp this value "conditionally" (incrementally), we don't sense the
> value of otherness all at once but gradually and differentially, in the
> space/time mode of human awareness.
> 
> During the Value event, the brain is alerted to the conditional state of
> our awareness and is wired with neurons to translate the sensed values
> into a specific object of experience.  It achieves this by negating
> (rejecting, filtering out) all otherness that is not relevant to the
> values perceived. This leaves a "remainder" -- a residue of otherness --
> which is stored in memory as the finite image of a triangle, for
> example.  Now, if the values transmitted to the brain were reversed in
> polarity, we would experience an area of indefinite size with a
> tri-cornered hole in its center.  (Thank you, Dan!)  And if there were
> no differentiated values perceived, we would experience nothing.  Why? 
> Because awareness itself is nothing and because the value that fills it,
> like everything else in existential reality, is relative to changes or
> differences that become-aware to the individual in the course of a
> lifetime.
> 
> So you see, Platt, negated experience isn't all that complicated.  I've
> covered both primary and secondary negation here, and you probably
> didn't even notice ;-).
> 
> Best regards,
> Ham
> 
> 
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