[MD] the subjective

[Ham Priday]

Hi Marsha --

> You wrote that "consciousness is not found in neurons
>  or gray cells".  I agree.  But I cannot find consciousness
> anywhere.  I've seen it flow in meditation, but it wasn't
> any kind of entity.

You won't find consciousness because it is not an 'existent'.  It cannot be 
localized, quantified, or directly observed.  By all objective standards, it 
does not exist.  Yet, conscious awareness is the essential You.  Without it 
there would be no Marsha, and that would be tragic for all of us.

The subjective self transcends existence, even as it actively participates
in it.  Which is why we can't dismiss it from our reality perspective.  I 
suspect you introduced this topic because Prisig puts very little emphasis 
on the individual self.  His worldview is a collective hierarchy of levels 
and patterns whose morality and existence are independent of the individual. 
As you know, I consider this a travesty of philosophical understanding.

Human beings are a unique combination of psychic awareness and organic 
matter.  Each of us is a 'being-aware' -- a microcosmic representation of 
the Sensibility/Otherness dichotomy that defines existence.  The source of 
this dichtomy is absolute and undifferentiated.  But because our 
neuro-sensory perception is finite, we are cognizant of reality as a 
continuous series of events in time and space which we intellectualize as 
cause-and-effect.  The sensibility that starts this whole
process is our affinity for Essence, which I call Value.

Because we are organic beings, this value-sensibility is converted by the 
brain into the things and events of experienced reality.  So, in a real 
sense, the universe is your value objectivized.  Or, to phrase it more 
poetically, you are your universe.  You bring value into being through 
experience. And it is by your free choice of values that your world is 
either a joyous and inspiring place, or a dreadful and burdensome existence.

The existentialists here say the subjective self emerges out of being and is 
insignificant.  They won't consider my view that being is a valuistic 
construct of the self which is primary to existence.  Pirsig's MoQ kind of 
straddles the fence by positing subjects and objects as patterns of quality, 
without telling us where quality comes from or how it can be realized in the 
absence of a sensible agent.  Perhaps his theory was influenced by the 
'selflessness' of Zen Buddhism.  (You would know better that I.)  I can only 
say that a philosophy which doesn't acknowledge a purpose for human 
existence is deficient.

Long live the subjective!

Warmest regards,
Ham