[MD] Tit's

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, Platt --

> Since you mentioned my name . . .
>
> I would say that UNLESS Value can be cognitively abstracted
> in its pure form, we could not tell any difference between good
> and bad, right and wrong. Cognitively, any differentiation
> presupposes a unitary whole -- or in plain English, logically you
> can' t have many without one.
>
> I don't understand why you separate Marsha, me, yourself or
> anyone else from the universe, as if she, me, you and everyone
> else isn't an integral product and part of the universe.

Your "plain English" statement is quite correct.  Everything comes from one. 
Diversity is actually a negation or "reduction" of the unitary whole, rather 
than something "added" to it.  That's why, metaphysically speaking, the 
individual self cannot be a "part" of the whole.  That would invalidate the 
unity principle.  We are parts of the universe, of course.  But, unlike the 
universe, Essence is indivisible.  Therefore, subjective awareness is no 
more essential than objective beingness is, and values are relational, like 
everything else in existence.

You'll recall my definition of the individual subject as the "being-aware" 
dichotomy.  (It's a dichotomy because the contingencies are mutually 
dependent; one cannot exist without the other.)  But Essence is a unitary 
whole which has no other.  The appearance of otherness is created by the 
negational power of Essence.  In my creation hypothesis, I use the analogy 
of the diameter inscribed in a circle to divide it into two semicircles. 
That imaginary line is nothingness, and the "creation" of two from one is 
actually a negation.  The principle of negation not only accounts for the 
separaion of sensibility from being, but it's how we delineate every thing 
and event in experience.  You could say that all otherness is an illusion, 
since from the perspective of Essence there is no other.  (re: Cusa's first 
principle)

How does value figure into this scheme?  Selfness is sensibility divided 
from Essence.
Sensibility is what perceives, knows, feels, and desires for itself, 
relative to the other.
It is the pre-intellectual (non-cognitive) awareness of the other's value, 
but not its essence.  (There's your "pure abstracted" Value, Platt.)  But 
the human individual is a conscious organism, a being-aware, and, as such, 
its sensibility is mediated by organic receptors and the organizing 
faculties of the cerebrum.  That's why, like everything that exists, value 
is experienced differentially -- morally, esthetically, qualitatively, 
etc, -- and within a range from excellent or most desirable to poor or least 
desirable.  It is this differentiation of value which makes free choice and 
morality possible.

> To me the universe not only has value to us, but values itself
> through us. Indeed there is no difference, only thinking makes it so.

The universe represents our value sensibility to Essence.  It is Essence 
which "values itself through us".  Yes, if we stopped thinking there would 
be no difference.  There would also be no value, no experience, no 
being-in-the-universe for you or me.  Please don't get me wrong ... we need 
the SOM perspective if we are to participate effectively in this relational 
world.  It would be imbecilic to go around shouting "We're deceived --  
reality is only an illusion!"  At the same time, once we realize this truth, 
it does not profit us to ignore it.

Cheers and best wishes,
Ham