[MD] Is Quality Different from (Mother) Nature?

[Ham Priday]

On Tuesday, 12/01/09 1:56 PM, "Joseph Maurer" <jhmau at sbcglobal.net wrote:

> Hi Ham and all,
>
> As I try to make sense of your negation of essence for individuated
> reality I get into a very negative place. Are you being negative when
> you propose that, or are you just trying to communicate your vision?
> I don¹t know whose record you are recounting, but a negative take
> on reality is very idealistic.

It seems to me that an "idealist" is a "realist" whose ideas are 
misunderstood by those who apply that label.  Even so, is there something 
wrong with being "idealistic"?  Perhaps you would prefer that I were an 
objectivist, a logician, or a mathematician.  Philosophers have historically 
strived to reach for the Ideal in their writings, whether it's positing 
ultimate reality, the ideal life, or an ideal morality.  In his own way, I 
think Mr. Pirsig has followed this path.

Your complaint that I've led you to "a very negative place" indicates that 
you, John, Mark and others here have misconstrued the ontogeny of my 
philosophy of Essence.  Such gross misunderstanding makes my contributions 
virtually meaningless in this forum.  So, while the rest of the debating 
team argues about the virtues of environmentalism and socialism, let me use 
this opportunity to explain my theory of reality in what I hope will be more 
understandable terms.

I believe that the universe is a representative "projection" of the 
individual's value sensibility.  Each of us is a sentient Self dependent on 
"being" for our existence, and what we are each sensible of is the Value of 
the essential Source.  Through the process of experience we convert this 
primary value-sensibility into things and events that constitute our 
relational world.  A perceived "thing" is no more than an objectivized 
construct of value, minus our sensibility.  That is, we objectivize an 
object by differentiating it from "pure" Value.  (This would be the 
equivalent of Pirsig's "pre-intellectual experience".)

What experience actually does is abstrct value incrementally from Essence to 
produce the appearance of finite "being" in time and space. 
Epistemologically, Being is Value deprived of (our) sensibility.  Or, to put 
it another way, we "negate" being, piecemeal, by injecting or penetrating 
essential Value with our own nothingness, adding its (finite) value to our 
proprietary sensibility.  This is how I understand the dynamics of 
experience.

As for the ontogeny--the creation process, the Self comes into existence as 
a negation of Essence.  Conscious sensibility is therefore an individualized 
"reduction" of Absolute Essence actualized by the separation of Sensibility 
from its estranged Source.  As negated entities, what we experience (and 
know directly) is the "intellectualized content" of our value sensibility.

>From this brief précis, perhaps you can see why I regard Quality (Value) as 
subjective realization, rather than the intrinsic property of an objective 
universe.  Perhaps, also, you can appreciate why I consider Freedom (i.e, 
free choice and the morality to which one subscribes) to be an exclusive 
option of the cognizant human being.  How this ontogeny matches up with 
Pirsig's Quality thesis (if at all) is a question best answered by the 
charter MoQists.

Thanks for the opportunity, Joe.

Kindest regards,
Ham