[MD] Ham and DM on Being and social being

[Ham Priday]

Hi Dave --

HP, quoting "Bag of Worms Yet Words" on Value:
> Each item is experienced by us as a complex of feelings.
> These complexes of feeling distinguish one experience
> from another as much as do the "objective" properties
> of the objects (or events) we experience....

> DM:  objective properties - a contradiction in terms.

How so?  We experience objects as having properties, do we not?   Our love
or dislike of a thing or its experienced properties is a value to us, is it
not?   If not, then how do you express the difference between objective
properties and subjective values?

> "What the existentialists say, about value, is that each of us
> lives within a world of values.  There are values of many kinds,
> all of which are feelings (in some sense), rather than perceptions
> or cognitive thoughts: emotion (e.g., happiness, fright),
> expectation, alienation, conscience (e.g., duty, guilt), and
> confusion are values.
>
> "We never experience the world of objects, events, persons,
> and social relationships in which we live as those items might
> be described and measured by scientists.

DM:
> Scientists have to start with the same experiences we all have.
> They reduce the number of qualities they are interested in for
> scientific purposes, they imagine the relationships between
> things that are not living and try to describe them mathematically.
> They have no special 'objective' method that can do without
> normal experience.

Scientists have devised numerous ways of expanding the data of objective
knowledge beyond "normal" experience -- telescopes, electron microscopes,
oscilloscopes, pH meters, spectrophotometers, seismographs, etc.  They also
define energy, light and matter analytically, in terms of relationships
(equations) not apparent to our experience.  Are these not special methods
reserved for scientific investigation?

> "We can never experience a fast sports car, as might
>  be described by a physicist or an engineer."

DM:
> So they are talking about imagined rather than experienced
> events/processes.

Are the laws of gravity, thermodynamics, or relativity "imaginary"?   If
they are valid principles that affect what we experience as phenomena, they
are fundamental to the experienced (i.e., objective) world.  How else would
you categorize them?

> "We should conclude by mentioning that the values which we experience are
> precognitive and determinative."

DM:
> Originally, but my experience of language, speech, etc
> is valued and linguistic.

Your experience (of language) is valued.  No one is denying the value of
experience.  But language or linguistics is a tool of communication, like
fountain pens, typewriters, and telephones.  While they have a certain
utilitarian value, I don't see it as the equivalent of psycho-emotional
value which this author is discussing.
Some have argued that value can be defined as "what's important."  I counter
this argument with the fact that our measure of what's "important" are the
feelings we attach to it, such as pleasure, pain, revulsion, esteem,
magnificence, triteness, etc.   I think this is what the author is talking
about as value.

> "By precognitive, I mean values exist as part of our
> experience before we are able to think about them or be
> conscious of them. By determinative, I mean that values
> set up the structure of our conscious experience
> (for instance, by separating some experience from us
> as 'objective,' and some experience as 'subjective')."

DM:
> There is no such split pre-cognitively.
> See if you can persuade me otherwise.

Okay.  We have five major sense organs by which we are precognitively aware
of color, sound, smell, taste, and tacticity as differentiated values.  We
have cognitive discrimination of esthetic values, such as design in art,
music and architecture, poignancy in drama and literature, justice in
societal relations, beauty in the human form, even "moments of clarity" in
intellectual discussion.  These are all psycho-emotional responses to
different kinds of value.  The brain isn't confused; it sorts them all out
as a state of feeling relative to the object or event experienced, then
proceeds to "objectivize" that object or event in the space/time world.

HP, previously:
> Do you not believe that your subjective desires, pleasures,
> fears, tastes, attitudes, etc., are  proprietary to your self?
> You won't convince me that these feelings are all manifested
> in your behavior.

DM:
> 'All' is not required, but most of the time yes. I don't read emails
> and despair that mere letters on a screen will ever give me any
> idea of what Mr Ham is really like.  Here's your email, and
> something or other is understood, enough of it on the money
> to make conversation possible between real people.

I agree; that is, this experience affords me a comparable perception of
David.  I have some idea of what David is about, what philosophical values
concern him; but even if we were in total agreement in our explication of
concepts, I wouldn't be sharing his proprietary values.  I might like the
color yellow because of my early association of it with a yellow delivery
truck that passed through my neighborhood as a child.  You cannot possibly
know this, but it affects the way I value yellow.  That value has a
relevance to my essential being-in-the-world that is not duplicated by
anyone else.  All experience -- all values -- are proprietary to the
individual subject.

HP, previously:
> Anything reduced from Essence seeks to
> complete the circle of existence in this way.
> What drives this "struggle to evolve" is the
> value of the Source.

DM:
> Sure is like a kind of falling, and we try to make a few
> worthwhile twists and turns on the way down or up.

HP, previously:
> I don't presume to comprehend the REASON (i.e.,
> "teleogical necessity") for actualized existence with its
> separation of an autonomous sensibility from otherness.
> Reason is an intellectual construct of the human mind that
> interprets all events as cause-and-effect; it has no grasp of
> what is "moral", perfect or complete in absolute reality.
> I see man's "innocence" as necessary for his freedom.

DM:
> Are we separate from what is Other?  I'd say DQ is always
> a kind of opening to what is Other.  Is cause and effect
> very important in life?

Cause and effect is how we try to explain what happens.  But the "what" that
happens is our own objectivized creation.  It's constructed out of the
Essence that we are separated from at birth and can only sense as Value.
Yes, that process is important, else we wouldn't be here.  Ultimately we
reclaim that value and dissolve the self/other dichotomy.  Our unique
journey through differentiated existence serves an essential purpose that we
may speculate upon but can never know.  I happen to believe it "refreshes"
or "perfects" the Source in some metaphysical way.  Whatever it does, I have
the utmost confidence that it is for the best.  Meantime, I'll happily
exploit my freedom as an autonomous agent of the Absolute.

DM:
> Sure I rely on the ground not opening up to swallow me up,
> and food giving me nutrition, etc, but otherwise we are
> unbelievably free. To travel across the planet, to use our
> bodies, to speak to each other. The sad thing is how we are
> all socialised and do and say only those things that will not
> surprise anybody and are very conventional and conformist.
> Maybe virtual reality is more important than we realise and
> will change what human beings are by freeing them from
> social convention.

I wouldn't bet on technology to do that.  Free YOURSELF from social
convention.  Try Ayn Rand's Objectivism and become an individualist.  Your
example may start a new fad!  Look at what the Hollywood celebrities do.
They create a whole new set of values just by being quoted in the tabloids.
Surely you and I can use "rational self-interest" to change society in more
significant ways.

I've also enjoyed our chat, primary because you are open to new perspectives
and seem to understand my position, even when we disagree.  Would that I
could say the same for others here!

Thanks, David, and have a great week.

-- Ham