[MD] Food for Thought

[David M]

> "Behavior demonstrated by..." is not evidence of Value.  This is a mistake
> which all of you are making: e.g., the apple falls from the tree because 
> it
> "values" gravity.  Let's be clear about this.  I define Value as 
> proprietary
> sensibility which cannot be substantiated by empirical evidence.  This is
> not a "scientific" issue; the only evidence for subjective value is your
> individual sensibility.  If you want to define value as "behavior" we are
> talking at cross purposes.

DM: I accept your behaviour as evidence of your subjectivity and values
so am I making a mistake?
>
> DM:
>> I guess you are calling this 'subjective' as you are recognising
>> certain patterns as unaware. As Pirsig is seeing all behaviour as
>> (animate and inanimate) as requiring values he is dropping the
>> use of this subject-object distinction.  Like Heidegger I think
>> we need to keep this neutrality because it enables us to
>> consider what 'things' express, as we can only ever experience
>> things in the context of what value they have this seems the
>> more care-ful approach.
>
> I most definitely am calling value subjective.  Value is not what a thing
> "expresses" or how it behaves.

DM: Do you not express values by your behaviour?

 It is how we sense that there is something
> beyond ourselves.  Value is our conscious representation of otherness.
> Heidegger avoided the term value, because he regarded all values as
> 'thing-values', that is, for Heidegger, tools, utensils, the stuff all
> around us (das Zeug), "disclose" Being.  His ontology was that Being
> revealed Value, whereas mine is the reverse: in proprietary awareness, 
> Value
> reveals Being.

DM: Values do reveal being, as Heidegger suggested before you, but he 
resisted
excluding these values from part of Being as this leads to SOM and adopting 
an
instrumental approach to Being.

>
> HP (previously):
>> So, when I talk about proprietary awareness (PA), I mean
>> the total subjective side of the S/O dichotomy.  When I
>> speak of "consciousness" I include experiential, intuitive,
>> homeostatic, and psycho-emotional response, except for
>> sensibility.  I reserve human sensibility for "value-sense"
>> -- pre-conscious awareness of the Value of otherness.
>
> DM:
>> But this takes all value away from the other, it makes the other
>> an object, something that opposes the subject, it has banished
>> the inter-subjective where the meaning is in relationship and is
>> not concentrated on the human as some kind of transcendental ego.
>
> It takes "particular" value away from the other, yes.  And this value
> abstracted by the subject "reduces" otherness (finitely) to make the other
> an object for the self.  So, you are right that the act of perception "has
> banished the inter-subjective...relationship."  More precisely, it has
> annulled the subject/object relationship to the extent of the object
> perceived.  You have almost outlined my epistemology -- except that you
> reject the concept!
>
> DM:
>> This is all too static, inter-subjectivity is possible only for that
>> which is open to the other, your subject wants to categorise
>> and not open up to the otherness of the other.
>
> Please explain what you mean by "inter-subjectivity".  To me it suggests 
> the
> relationship between subjects.  Is this your intent?

DM: That is my intent.

>
> HP (previously):
>> I also maintain that for any living organism to possess
>> sensibility, it must be derived from a sensible source.
>> That source cannot be Nature, the physical world, or
>> even the functioning brain, inasmuch as these entities
>> are not sentient by their own power.
>
> DM:
>> ? I agree that in experience there is more than what is
>> actualised, there is the context of what is possible but is
>> not being actualised.  Surely this is the condition for
>> being able to give meaning to any exchange?
>
> The meaning of an "exchange" (of an experience) is an intellectual
> determination by the experiencing subject.  "Meaning" itself is the idea 
> or
> sigificance that something conveys to the mind.  The sense of Value is
> psycho-emotional and pre-intellectual, as Pirsig himself maintained. 
> Thus,
> Value (Quality) does not reside in the subject or the object, but in the
> "event" -- the differentiated sensibility of otherness.  By objectivizing
> Value intellectually, we turn it into "things" and "events".  The essence 
> of
> Value is in the aggregate: the Absolute Source.

DM: Fine, but I have no time for the word absolute as it implies something
finished and what is existence if it is not an exploration of what is 
possible
and of value? Why would any absolute require the journey of discovery that
we know as the actual.