[MD] Intuitive Reasoning?

[Ham Priday]

Gav and Ian --

Gav said:

> At the most correct and fundamental level
> there is no tree and there is no me, just experience.

Gav is right, up to the point of adding "just experience".  There is no
experience without both the "me" and the "tree".  That's because we don't
live at a fundamental level.  Physical existence is not fundamental; we live
in a differentiated reality where each subject and each object is divided
from every other.  No other scenario makes sense.  By collectivizing
"experience" and "intellect", you demean the individual self in order to
attribute these human functions to Quality.  This is not only a distortion
of empirical knowledge, it's flawed metaphysics.

I suspect that's what Ian was reaching for when he said:

> The genetic determination only goes so far as to determine
> "a" Redwood tree, the specific individual tree interacts
> with it's environment according to its genetically
> determined starting resources, but the outcome is
> that of individual experience.

Actually, the outcome is the determined property of the tree's cells.

> But you would accept that the intelligence (and
> consciousness) of a Giant Redwood is different to that
> of a human?

Gav answered:

> Consciousness (as opposed to self-consciousness which
> characterises the intellectual level of pirsig's metaphysics)
> has me and the tree, not the other way round.
>
> There is no difference at the most fundamental level,
> as we are all part of an intelligent planet and universe
> that manifests itself through humans, trees, frogs, whatever.

You see, Gav, your ontology makes Consciousness the primary source, not
Quality. Pirsig would not accept that view.  "Quality", he says, "is the
primary empirical reality of the world".  But if Quality is the empirical
reality, what is its source -- its ultimate reality?
If the world is made of Quality, what accounts for Nature's imperfections
and man's deficiencies?  Why isn't everything inherently perfect?  Does the
MoQ have an explanation for this state of affairs?

My explanation is that man's perennial struggle with existence has an
ultimate purpose --namely, to make being aware.  Human life is a "working
out" of values by an autonomous agent in pursuit of its own excellence.  We
are each granted the freedom to choose our own values.  In becoming aware of
objective otherness, each of us brings  conditional value into being until
the otherness that we are aware of is no longer an object but the
unconditional value of our primary source.  In other words, what we are in
Essence is what we value in life.  We are all here to reclaim that value.

Essentially yours,
Ham