[MD] Chance

[Ham Priday]

Hi Craig --



> So I suppose hermaphrodites refute your theory.  I hope you're
> kidding that one dichotomy "accounts" for all these differences.

No, I'm quite serious.  Contrariety is the dual nature of what we call 
existence but is really the extremes of Value as sensed by the conscious 
agent.  The subject's discrimination (value judgment) parses or mediates 
these extremes, so that we experience degrees of value -- from perfect 
goodness to merciless evil, to cite a moral example.  This makes value 
relational in a pluralistic world, in the same way that time and space are 
relational within their experiential limits.  Exquisite sensitivity to a 
range of values is a distinguishing factor of human awareness, and it is why 
man's reality is far more complex than that of other creatures whose tastes 
and preferences are directed primarily at sustaining their biological 
existence.

Inasmuch as the "extremes" of any system define its fundamental limits, the 
self/other dichotomy is fundamental to contrariety, while "difference" 
accounts for man's valuistic
sensibility.  That's why I maintain that value is always experienced 
relationally; it is always represented as the experience of something 
more/less valuable than something else, relative to the self.  This is not 
to deny that Value (i.e., Pirsig's Dynamic Quality) hypothetically may be 
absolute in Essence, except that Essence is more than Value, and such 
descriptions are beyond human conception.

As far as hermaphrodites are concerned, they are an anomaly of nature, as 
are homosexuality, autism, color-blindness, and tone-deafness.  We identify 
these anomalies readily, because they stand out in a world we've come to 
rely on as heterogeneous and binary in nature.  That, again, demonstrates 
man's sense of symmetry/asymmetry, whether realized in art, gender, 
morality, or the laws of thermodynamics.

Good question, Craig.  I'm pleased to see that you're still paying 
attention.

Essentially yours,
Ham