[MD] Dawkins a Materialist (is watching?]

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Ham]
Are you the same scrappy Arlo who used to hurl insults at me?

[Arlo]
Scrappy???

[Ham]
Thanks for allowing a stimulating and civil discussion, Arlo.

[Arlo]
You say this... but I got two dismissive "whatevers", and some 
allusion to "multiculturalism" that I can only assume was meant as an 
insult. I'll try to sort out points of difference between us Ham, but 
let's avoid the condescending innuendo, eh? I'll do my best in that 
regard as well.

[Ham]
But you don't get MINE.  However you may appraise my ontology -- 
whether you see it as "better" or "worse" than somebody else's -- it 
expresses my conception of reality. I present it as my ontogony, my 
view of how reality is constructed.

[Arlo]
Of course it does, Ham. But just as you say it here... it is a "your 
conception of reality". It is a metaphor that you find great value in 
to explain "this".

[Ham]
Do we at least agree that reality itself is not a metaphor, analogy, 
parable, or "figure of speech'?

[Arlo]
Are you asking, "is there an objective world upon which our 
subjective metaphor rests"? In the sense you must mean this (I 
gather), I'd have to say "no". Objects and subjects are mutually 
emergent from the Quality event. We can talk about an "objective 
world", and define it by symbols based on shared experience, and I'd 
agree that an S/O division allows for much pragmatic activity 
(although not always Good). But do not confuse this either with 
Idealism. "Reality" is not "in the mind", nor do humans "make 
reality". To rephrase this slightly, we can talk about "reality", but 
as long as we are clear that I am not using it to refer to shared 
experiences arising from Quality, and not some absolute, empirical 
"thing", we should be fine.

[Arlo previously]
I don't think I was as clear as I could have been. I should have said 
"witnessing complexity forces us to recognize the need for a designer".

[Ham]
Excellent!  That saves me a lot of words -- especially if you really 
believe it.

[Arlo]
Uh oh. You see, I said it because that's what Platt seemed to be 
saying, and what I was rejecting. Quick clarification, to avoid 
restating too much from that discussion, it is not "designer" itself 
that I find troubling, it is the implicating of preplanned or 
preordered forms and templates, which to me a "designer" implies. We 
touch on this below, namely, before humans (say 200 trillion years 
ago) did a design for humans exist somewhere? This is to me the 
implication of a "designer", but I have been told that one can have a 
"designer" and not have "preconceptualized intent". I'm not sure how, 
but that's where I am with this.

[Ham]
Essence is indivisible, which is why we can't directly experience it. 
Instead we sense its Value, relationally, and objectivize it as the 
experience of a differentiated world.

[Arlo]
This is a part of your thesis I do understand.

[Ham]
I'm positing an undifferentiated One that creates the appearance of 
otherness by negating itself.  (Let's save negation for another discussion.)

[Arlo]
And that's the part of your thesis (did you once say "negation 
negates itself"?) I don't understand.

[Ham]
The point to remember [it gave Case a headache because he insisted 
that awareness is a form of being] is that Being-Aware is a true 
dichotomy: there is no being without awareness, and no awareness without being.

[Arlo]
We use words differently. If there is not one without the other, then 
this is not a dichotomy in the sense I use the word. Dichotomies 
represent separable pairs. Although you can't have "Good" without 
having "Evil", that which is "Good" does not contain "Evil". They are 
separable. Are Being and Awareness mutually contained? Or are they separable?

[Arlo, referring to Ham's definition above]:
For point of reference, I'd change your last sentence to... "The 
world that we experience is subjective (proprietary) with respect to 
our microgenetic/proprietary experience, but universal (objective) 
with respect to our shared/collective mythos."  Universality extends 
only to shared experience.

[Ham]
Why complicate subjectivity by giving it genetic properties?  (That's 
trying to wire the brain for thought processes, which I haven't even 
gotten to.)

[Arlo]
Sorry, I am using "genetic" in a way defined by socio-cultural 
theory. The problem with words and definitions. "Microgenetic" means 
something like "microsensory", meaning solitary experience that 
extends down to the smallest sensory experiences. The reason why the 
"mythos" does not make us all robots is because, although we have a 
shared system of valuing, selecting, organizing and interpreting 
experience, at the "micro-level" we have unique experience. As this 
resonates upward, and becomes ordered and sorted and conceptualized, 
we move towards culturally-bound and mutually shared (as these 
experiences become negotiated to make sense) experiences.

[Ham on the central problem here, pre-existing templates for creation]
I admit that this remains an unresolved problem for me, and I'm 
surprised that the Pirsigians have ignored it.  I chalk it up as a 
cosmic principle. It's "what happens" when an infinitesimal subject 
meets the absolute source through its sense of value.

[Arlo]
I don't know how many have "ignored it". Like I said, I am quite 
clear in denying pre-existing templates. It comes back in some way to 
my "dinosaurs existed to give us oil" comment (remember this was said 
TO me, I didn't come up with it). If WE (humans) were designed (as 
templates) since the beginning, then it makes sense to assume we were 
meant to be here all along. So, why spend 150 million years to 
populate the earth with large reptiles? Was that a mistake? Did it 
have a purpose? If all along WE were the "heirs apparent" to the 
cosmos, then the dinosaurs must have existed either as "filler" or to 
"give us oil". Or, more directly to contemporarily, "do platypi exist 
to service us?" These were questions I asked in the "Respect for the 
Design" thread. If you choose, you can answer them there.

[Ham]
That's all very informative, but you're talking physics and chemistry 
-- space/time processes, not metaphysics.  You're looking at the 
physical world as the scientist does, and your conclusions will be as 
objectivist as his are.  That's why Science will never come up with a 
workable ontology.

[Arlo]
I prefer to think I am looking at the world as an artist (or art 
admirer) does. Value and meaning derive from this experience, 
situated and cultural, not from an external Absolute.

[Ham]
Since all you did was substitute Quality for Value, it shouldn't 
affect what I've said so far.  However, I feel duty-bound to warn you 
in advance that the Value I refer to is not innate in, or a property 
of, what we call the physical world.  It is sensed only by the 
conscious individual.  (I fear that may contradict your "universality 
clause" for Quality.)

[Arlo]
I'm not sure I'd say Quality (or Value) is "a property of the physical world".

[Ham on the American Crisis]
Yes, and we may suffer a worse fate if we continue to sit on our fat 
duffs and pretend not to notice the barbarians out there who are 
determined to destroy Western culture. ...

[Arlo]
Ah, politics. Perhaps in a new thread...