[MD] Food for Thought

[Ham Priday]

David --


 DM:
> I accept your behaviour as evidence of your subjectivity
> and values, so am I making a mistake?

You mistake objective behavior for a response to value.  A mechanical doll
or robot can exhibit the behavior of walking, even talking.  A flag hanging
from a pole points in the direction of the wind.  Bowling pins fall down
when struck  by the ball.  Are these responses to value?

DM:
> Do you not express values by your behaviour?

Rarely.  I'm more apt to express values in my preferences and decisions.
Human behavior doesn't directly tell us what an individual thinks or feels.
Behavior can be feigned.  Thus, a criminal who protests his innocence may be
given a lie detector test, but the U.S. justice system does not even accept
this as evidence of guilt.  If I cry "Ouch!", you may assume that I sense
pain; but, in general, how one behaves is an unreliable indicator of his
values.

HP, previously:

> Heidegger's ...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.

I have problems interpreting Heidegger.  But here is how Cynthia Nielsen
explains Heidegger's concept of value:

"Heidegger interprets Nietzsche as saying that nihilism is a 'devaluation of
all values.' So Heidegger asks, 'What is a value?' Heidegger (interpreting
Nietzsche) says, 'the essence of a value lies in its being a
point-of-view. . Through the characterization of value as a point-of-view
there results one consideration that for Nietzsche's concept of value is
essential: as a point of view, value is posited at any given time by a
seeing and _for_ a seeing.  This seeing is of such a kind that it sees
inasmuch as it has seen, and that it has seen inasmuch as it has set before
itself and thus posited what is sighted as a particular something.'
Heidegger goes on to say that value 'counts inasmuch as it posited as that
which matters.  It is so posited through an aiming at and a looking toward
that which has to be reckoned upon.'  Aim, view, etc., have a meaning that
come out of the Greek tradition, viz., a seeing and that which is seen, but
the meaning has been transformed from idea (eidos) to perceptio. 'All being
whatever is a putting forth . The essence of everything that is - an essence
thus possessed of nisus [the impetus to come forward] lays hold of itself in
this way and posits for itself an aim in view. That aim provides the
perspective that is to be conformed to.  The aim in view is value.'
Moreover, a value is not a phenomenon that arose in the 19th century.
Understanding reality in terms of value is a much broader phenomenon.  To
approach reality from the point of view of value makes reality manipulable.
In other words, the world is seen in terms of enhancing our existence.
Instead of unleashing Being as being, this approach reduces Being."    -- 
[http://percaritatem.blogspot.com/]

HP, previously:
> 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.

Then, you are interpreting behavior as a valuistic response.  By engaging in
conversation, we communicate our ideas and experiences in an indirect,
objective context.  But, because value is subjective, there is no
"inter-subjective" value experience.  No other person can sense my values.

HP, previously:
> 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.

Why, indeed?  Your leading question is so well stated that the answer is
virtually self-evident.  I'll use your words.

BECAUSE the Absolute is finished and complete in itself, to be "perfected",
it extends its sensibility to an actualized (provisional) otherness in order
that its value may be realized autonomously.  Hence, "the journey of
discovery that we know as actual."  Negation creates Difference, dividing
sensibility and otherness which are held together by the Value of the
source.  Proprietary awareness (the not-other or "negate") realizes value by
negating otherness (the essent) and creating its own Being-in-the-world, to
use Heidegger's metaphor.  Each cognizant being becomes aware of (acquires)
value as its object.  Existentially, this creates the objective world.
Metaphysically, it enables the value of otherness to become realizable by
the subjective "not-other".

What don't you like about this scenario?

Essentially yours,
Ham