[MD] Value and the Individual

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Ham on Man's Cosmic Purpose]
You "see it" continuously, yet you don't recognize it.  Your 
intellect gets in the way.

[Ham on Pirsig's Pre-intellectual Awareness]
Again, I do not acknowledge "pre-intellectual experiences.

Despite what James and Pirsig say, the term "primary experience" 
conflates epistemology.  Experience is always an intellectual distinction.

[Arlo]
Synthesize these two positions for me, Ham. Do we not experience our 
"cosmic purpose"? If we do experience it, how can "intellect get in 
the way" if experience is "always an intellectual distinction"? If 
our "seeing" our cosmic purpose precedes intellect, and hence 
precedes experience, how do we see it? Is it something we "feel"?

[Ham Smacks Krimel with The Great Boogeyman]
In other words, you have succumbed to the collectivist view that one 
can ascribe "purpose and intention" to the universe but not to the 
self for which it was created.

[Krimel]
What in the world does this have to do with a collectivist view?

[Arlo]
Nothing. Its a meaningless word of derision affixed to any and all 
who oppose Ham's interpretations. If you don't agree with him, why 
you MUST be a GASP collectivist! He uses it as a synonym for the Big 
Bugaboo "nihilism".

[Ham's Question du Jour]
Do you agree with Krimel that "cosmic purpose is an absurd notion"?

[Arlo]
I'd say "cosmic purpose" is an intriguing speculation, perhaps. For 
some it is a comforting nightcap. But for me the question of 
absurdity revolves around this, if "man" has "a cosmic purpose", does 
anything else? Do whales have a cosmic purpose? Does my dog have a 
cosmic purpose? Or in all the cosmos, it is only "man" that has a 
"purpose"? (This isn't a question to you, Ham, I know what your answer is.)