[MD] the subjective

[MarshaV]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ham Priday" <hampday1 at verizon.net>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 4:32 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] the subjective


>
> 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
>

Greetings Ham,

I'm afraid we're never going to get there from here, and flattery won't help 
much.  I exist conventionally, I may wish at times to exist poetically (that 
would be nice), but I do not exist as an independent, permanent agent.   I 
exist as an ever-changing, collection of overlapping, interrelated, 
inorganic, biological, social and intellectual, static patterns of value.  I 
suppose that does make me a valuistic construct.  I think maybe my 
experiences are based on many causes and conditions, not least of which is 
the previous thought.  This may not be as poetic as your definition of a 
subjective self, but there is joy and there is love amongst these patterns.

You are a sweetie,

Marsha