[MD] Heads or tails?

[Hamilton Priday]

Platt, Ron --


David Darling in 'Soul Search' said:
"The brain begins to look more like a regulator or editor of 
consciousness--a reducing valve."

This is the point we fail to acknowledge when we speak of the "mind emerging 
from the mindless".  As Micah may one day explain to us, objective reality 
is actually the reverse of this proposition.  The insentient universe 
emerges (appears) as a construct of the finite mind.  Since they've got it 
backwards, the objectivists struggle with an unsolvable problem.

Differentiated (proprietary) awareness is a reduction of undifferentiated 
value--the finite organism's sense of
otherness.  We can only perceive this otherness incrementally via the brain 
and its sensory receptors.  The result is a limited perspective of ultimate 
reality objectivized as things and events occurring in time and space.
This "fractionated" perspective is shared by all cognizant creatures and 
becomes the universal reality we call "existence".

In my ontology, existence is a dichotomy in which "awareness" is 
conditionally separated from "otherness".  Instead of mind/matter, I posit 
the dichotomy as awareness/value.  Objects are created (intellectualized) 
from Essential Value, the "pre-intellectual" sensibility that is primary to 
self-awareness.  Thus, the appearance of existing things divided by 
nothingness is a sensory illusion caused by value becoming aware (of being). 
I regret that Pirsig didn't see the need to develop such an epistemology for 
the MoQ.  It might have resolved a lot of controversial issues.

[Ron]:
> In many ways this is the conclusion I have come to on this issue.
> Some say it is a nihlistic view.  Belief systems are integral and very
> important and powerful factors in regard to our position as agents
> of change. But it helps to be aware of this function of the brain and
> to take this into account when formulating ideas and decisions.

Insofar as this applies to Darling's point about the brain's function as the 
"editor of consciousness", I agree.
However, I suspect that you're not accounting for the valuistic component of 
man as an "agent of change."  For me this is critical.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Essentially yours,
Ham

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