[MD] Art of Value

[Hamilton Priday]

Case --

> I do [n't?] expect that we will be swapping spit any time soon but perhaps
> looking at the areas where we have some level of agreement will
> at least calm to outbursts of hostility.

I'm probably about to throw the first spitball.  But it has to do with the 
objectivist view, which I would venture to say is the prevailing position 
here, rather than anything personally aimed at you.  Actually, you express 
this position explicitly when you talk about probability collapsing in the 
"now" of time and when you insist on "thing-in-itself" ontology.  You make 
the objective world far more "real" than Pirsig's philosophy portrays it, 
and certainly more real that a phenomenalist like myself conceives it.

For example, you said:
> ...the biggest object[ion] I have heard yet to this notion has to
> do with the fact that the rate of time varies with motion and is not
> constant throughout the universe. But no one here has raised this
> objection and I do not know how seriously it damages my position.

Why do such human constructs as the "rate of time" versus motion and 
evolutionary development continue to trouble you?  It can only be that 
objective reality is sacrosanct in your view, and that you regard it as 
primary to your ontology.  This finitely experienced system of things in 
motion and passing events is your "real world".  Intractable objectivist 
that you are, it's impossible for you to see the subjective component as the 
generator of physical reality.  You even cite Whitehead's "universe as 
process" theory to support your objectivist viewpoint.

> Whitehead's explanation of process and "occasions" or "events"
> is very similar to what I have in mind.

I'll skip your detailed examples of modern infrastucture that is 
incompatible with man's "natural habitat" and African bushwomen evading 
menstruation by bearing children in their pre-teens.  Such anecdotes, 
fascinating though they may be to anthropologists, are not relevant to 
philosophy or metaphysics.  I've no doubt that we could compile a mile-long 
list of incidents demonstrating man's mistakes in "reshaping the natural 
environment."  The history of human ingenuity is a work in progress; that 
individuals are often more ambitious than wise in their actions demonstrates 
their innate freedom.  If human beings were perfect and all-knowing, they 
would be capable of predicting the consequences of their decisions.  They 
would not then be free agents, and the life-experience would have no 
meaning.

Instead, I'm going to be impulsive and jump to where you say "we don't want 
to go;" namely, epistemology.

> In my view there is the phenomenological internal construction of reality
> and there are TiTs. We really only talk about our internal constructions.
> Before we start looking to abstraction I would think it is important to
> get a handle on what we know about how we do what we do.
> For example how accurate are our senses? How do we organize
> sensation into perception? How are memories and internal representations
> formed?  How do these capabilities develop in infants? How are they
> the same or different from the way other species function?

What about our "external" constructions?  I'm somewhat annoyed by these 
repetitive allusions to the brain as an "antenna" picking up intellectual 
signals or a "mirror" of reality.  Personally, I think Kant's 'TiT' 
rationale is a can of worms, and I have difficulty understanding how the 
Pirsigians can construe an experience-based metaphysics as fostering 
objectivism.

I propose replacing the overused TiT ontology with TiS [Things-in-Self]. 
You frequently refer to man's image of reality as a "representation." 
Indeed, finite reality represents precisely what we experience.  The objects 
and events that form this space/time reality are what we construct from our 
value sensibility.  We transform otherness into particular "things" having 
particular qualities through our psycho-organic intellection.  We perceive 
physical reality as the evolution of "beings" in time and space because our 
brain and nervous system is wired to observe them dimensionally and in 
transition.  But the "essence" of beingness is Value, not energy, matter, or 
mathematical probability.  All of the laws and principles that apply to our 
knowledge of objective reality are intellectualized from experience.  In 
short, the relational world is a construct of man.

With due respect for the "cleverness" of neuroscientists in coming up with 
theories that define human cognizance in terms of neuronic brain cell 
activity, this is how I see the Epistemology of Value.

Are we swapping spit yet?

Essentially yours,
Ham