[MD] Tit's

[Ham Priday]

Hi Marsha --

> Value IS the universal principle.  All objects (spovs) are concepts. 
> Intellect is not the agent AND not a disembodied agency.  Intellect and 
> agent are not separate, but interdependent.  Conceptually constructed 
> through interdependent relationship. That is the Middle Way, and 
> corresponds to the MOQ's interaction of patterns with DQ.

This is the same problem I have with Platt and others here  Which values do 
you think are universal --"low-quality" values, "high quality" values, or 
both?   Value is "universal" in the sense that it is the essence of our 
reality.  But we don't experience it universally, that is, as a homologous 
whole.  We experience it relationally -- for example, as our love or dread 
for particular things and events.  You see, if Value could be cognitively 
abstracted in its pure form, there would be no differentiation, meaning it 
would not be possible to sense a range of values and pattern physical 
reality from it.  Goodness and badness would  be indistinguishable, and 
morality would be meaningness.

That's why value is "embodied" in human sensibility.  It's our immanent 
connection with the "otherness" that represents our source in Essence.  To 
put it another way, we are the sensible agents of value.  We bring value 
into being by experiencing it as a multiplistic, relational world.  Value is 
what makes cognitive awareness possible, and all awareness is proprietary to 
the self.  The idea that Value exists independently of the self is a 
metaphoric construct which continues to confound the MoQists.  It is 
epistemologically flawed, denies self-determination and free choice, and 
makes individual behavior subservient to the laws of nature.

> There is no self (literally) and no objective experiences.  All is the 
> interdependency of values.
>
> I think the interdepency of everything counters your
> "'ex nihilo' principle" and the need for a primary source.

That makes no sense to me, Marsha.  I know you mean well, but you are 
defining reality as a valuistic tautology -- values valuing value.  How is 
one value dependent on another and, without a source, where does this 
interdependency start?  Despite what Pirsig says, you can't have value 
without a sensible subject in relation to something valued.  Again, to put 
it bluntly, value is an SOM phenomenon.  Take away the observing subject and 
no value is realized.  Conversely, remove the experienced object and there 
is nothing to value.  The primary source is what creates the dichotomy that 
divides awareness from beingness.

> At the moment I'm thinking that awareness and compassion
> are more essential to a life of quality.

Well, certainly awareness is.  Compassion is one of those relative emotions, 
like resentment, envy and desire, the nature and practice of which depends 
on the social cirumstances.  But they're all derived from value-sensibility 
... YOUR value-sensibility, not the universe's.

With love,
Ham.