[MD] The Quality of Freedom

[Ham Priday]

Good morning, Joe -- 


> Hi Ham and all,
>
> To deny existence to something experienced by all sentient beings
> is to talk in circles. 'Nothing' is the only logical non-existent in our
> language.  In your criteria for existence 'quality' is conspicuously
> absent while 'quantity' holds the first place.  This places mathematics
> as the only logical discipline. Mathematics has no logic for an
> absolutely indivisible essence.

I do not deny that existence is what is experienced.  I'm denying that 
existence is ultimate reality.  Quality (or what I call 'value') is the 
individual's immanent esthetic sensibility; it is sensed prior to experience 
and is the "qualitative ground" of experiential awareness.  Epistemologists 
have defined what we apprehend qualitatively as "qualia".  (I haven't seen 
the need to emphasize valuistic experience because it's primary and 
self-evident.)

Your assertion that mathematics is "the only logical discipline" is 
debatable, but it has no relevance to qualia or the appreciation of value. 
It is true that quantitive information is "universal" in that it's the 
component of our experience that is measurable and can be confirmed by 
others.  But that's because quantitative data is intellectually constructed 
as an 'add-on' to qualia in order to make existential reality correspond to 
the universal model.

As Pirsig tried to demonstrate with his "hot stove" analogy, our immediate 
experience is qualitatively derived by differentiating Essential Value into 
qualia.  This is the process by which we intellectualize physical reality.

You're "almost there", Joe.  I would suggest, however, that you drop the 
mathematical/logic criteria which is useless here and can only confuse the 
issue we're discussing.

Thanks for following me along this far.

Essentially yours,
Ham