[MD] Wanted: A proper foundation

[Ham Priday]

Hi Marsha --

> Which intelligentsia are you suggesting have such power?   Maybe you're 
> thinking of the Economists, they are calling themselves the Intellectuals 
> these days.  And these days the Economists with real power are a part of 
> the Washington Celebrity crowd.  Social through and through.  That's 
> probably not right, but neither is your paragraph.  I should have just 
> snipped it.

By "intelligentsia" I meant elitists who call themselves philosophers.  I 
was suggesting that they might think twice about advocating the dominance of 
intellect over society in an unstable world where competition for power 
prevails.  As a Pirsigian, you view Social and Intellectual as levels of 
Quality vying for power.  I don't.  To the extent that social behavior is 
intellectual, it merely reflects the intellect of its individual members. 
There is no need to consider biological, social, and intellectual processes 
in a competitive struggle for world dominance.  We have enough of that 
already.


> I like the definition of static as 'showing or admitting of little or no 
> change', and not 'absence change or movement.'  The patterns that are 
> overlaid onto experience are static.  And DQ I think of as Quality whose 
> dynamics is spontaneous.

Emergence and change are fundamental characteristics of existence (or what I 
call experiential reality).  They are the consequence of experiencing 
reality as a series of events that begin and end in a time continuum.  That 
continuum is a dimension of experience itself, not a property of an 
objective universe.
Ultimate reality is not a process of discrete objects coming into existence 
and running their course through history.  That's the intellectual illusion 
of human awareness.  I don't know what "Quality whose dynamics is 
spontaneous" is supposed to mean.  Does spontaneity mean "dynamic" to you? 
If Quality is ultimately "dynamic", why do we experience its patterns as 
"static"?  You said you "regard time as a static-pattern-of-value overlaid 
onto experience."  Can you explain how experiencing things and events in 
sequence is static?   And can you give me an example of what you call a 
Dynamic Quality experience?  (Kindly avoid Pirg's infamous "hot seat" 
analogy.)

> Example Ham, example.  What exactly do you mean by finite?   Dependency 
> and change makes an object other than a thing-in-itself.  The way we 
> perceive things, as independent entities, is mistaken.  Our reflections of 
> entities as independent is also wrong.  I do not regard time as an 
> inherent principle of the physical world.  I regard time as a 
> static-pattern-of-value overlaid onto experience.

Do you accept the dictionary definition?  "Finite: 1.a) having definite or 
definable limits;  b) having a limited nature of existence; 2. completely 
determinable in theory or in fact by counting, measurement or thought; 
niether infinite nor infinitesimal."  (Incidentally, I agree totally with 
the above statements.)

> IF ESSENCE IS NOT ACCESSIBLE TO HUMAN BEINGS, HOW IS ESSENCE ACCESSIBLE TO 
> YOU AND YOUR THEORY???

A theory in the absence of available proof is a hypothesis.  Theories are 
what philosophers construct to account for what is not empirically evident. 
My theory of Essence is supported by the logic that "nothing can come from 
nothingness".  Man, value, difference, and physical reality are either the 
effects of an infinite regression of causes (which is illogical) or they are 
derived from a uncaused source.  I have opted for the latter, not only 
because it gives my ontology a solid metaphysical foundation but because it 
suggests a logical purpose for man's existence as a free agent of Value.

> Yes, I agree that the value experienced is relative.  But no things, only 
> events, processes and static patterns of value.

"Things" are really events or processes, if you consider that they are 
substantiated by atomic particles or energy bundles in motion.   And even 
your "static patterns of value" are subject to emergence, change, and 
dissolution.  Again, all of existence is a dynamic system.

[Marsha]:
> Then Kant was not right.  One from column A and two from column B.  Is 
> that one of rules for playing Essence?

[Ham]:
> No, that's Marsha being persnickety.

[Marsha]:
> I'm not a snob.  Am I?  Fool, yes.  Snob, no.  Am I a snob???

You're wearing out my dictionary.  "Persnickety: 1. a) fussy about small 
details; fastidious; b) having the characterics of a snob."  (I'll leave it 
to you to decide how much foolery or snobbishness is involved ;-).

Thanks, Marsha.
Ham