[MD] the meaning Hobbes's meaning

[Ham Priday]

Hi Michael --



[HP]:
> To posit Quality or Value as independent of sensibility, let alone
> as the primary force of the universe, is an absurdity.

[MP]:
> This caught my eye.  Ham this is a little like saying electricity does
> not exist if there is no resistor to tap the current. And in many ways
> that is a true statement, depending on your definition (word weasle
> alert) of electricity. But we all know electricity "exists" in the socket.
> While the socket just sits there, it's arguable there is no electricity
> "in" it. But does that apparent "lack" of electricity in any way make
> us less apt to grab a child considering sticking in a fork?
>
> Is "electricity" just the flow or does it include the potential for flow?

Interesting that you would choose "electricity" for your analogy. 
Technically speaking, electricity doesn't exist "in the socket."  Since 
electricity is usually defined as the flow of electrons (current), what 
exists at the terminals of the socket is an electro-motive charge or 
potential between them.  Current doesn't flow until the circuit is 
completed.  If a child sticks a fork in the socket while in contact with an 
electrical ground, he becomes part of the circuit and feels the current as 
its resistance load.

But why use an analogy when there are so many examples of actual value to 
choose from?

Suppose the child's mother tells him she's going to bake an apple pie which 
is something he's never sampled.  He may be interested in the baking 
procedure, but the pie has no particular value to him until he savors its 
taste.  If he enjoys it, he will henceforth recognize an apple pie as 
something of value.  Where is the value of the pie before it is tasted? 
Does it make sense to say that it "exists potentially"?

Or, suppose the child is handed a typed copy of  "Jack and the Beanstalk" 
before he can read.  Can we say that the value of this story exists 
potentially?  Does the written score for a piece of music have any value 
before it is heard?  Did the majesty of the Grand Canyon have any value 
before it was seen?  And what was the value of morality before there were 
people?

I think you get my point to Marsha.  Quality or Value without realization is 
meaningless.  Only a sensible subject can realize value, goodness, or 
excellence.  And these esthetic/moral appraisals are relative not only to 
the subjective agent but to the objective phenomena by which they are 
realized.  There is no "unrealized value".

> I was reading a little Schopenhauer the other day (I'm better now, thanks)

Good!  Read more Schopenhauer.  He's one of my favorite philosophers.

> ...and it occurred to me that his approach to "will" is very similar to 
> Pirsig's
> contention of Quality underlying all patterns with one major, 
> fundamentally
> transformative distinction. Schopenhauer's reality boils down to being an
> infinite, flat featureless plane in which our "will" operates "willy 
> nilly" with no
> guide but our own. Pirsig's is the same thing ... but with a slope. Its 
> nearly
> identical, but it has direction. It has potential. And this slope 
> completely
> alters the perception of  reality and how our S'ian "will" operates within 
> it.

In the chapter on Value in my book I quote this passage from Schopenhauer's 
"World as Will and Idea":

"The delusive ecstacy which seizes a man at the sight of a woman whose 
beauty is suited to him, and pictures to him a union with her as the highest 
good, is just the sense of the species, which, recognizing the distinct 
stamp of the same, desire to perpetuate it with this individual ... Thus 
what guides man here is really an instinct which is directed to doing the 
best for the species, while man himself imagines that he only seeks this 
heightening of his own pleasure."

My interpretation of this statement is that free will expresses itself as 
the desire for value, and value is the driving force of man's behavior.

> So ... back to your statement above, yes... in a way Quality or
> Value, independent of sensibility by a sensing agent is meaningless.
> But they *can* still be there independently as a potential for
> sensibility. Even without a sensible agent, the *potential* for
> sensibility remains, and that makes *all* the difference.  It doesn't
> "exist" per se, and as you say is meaningless in reality absent
> sensibility. But its still there, and where we have the sensibility to
> appreciate it, it comes alive as a flow in patterned reality.

We are fundamentally in accord, Michael, except that I distinguish 
potentiality from actuality.  In my ontology, Essence is the "potential" for 
EVERYTHING -- including sensibility.  But, inasmuch as we are estranged from 
Essence as "beings-aware", our sensibility is the desire for its value to 
us.  To be aware is to be "wanting" the source of our being.  We are drawn 
to that source by value.  From the absolute perspective, Essence has no 
desire and is its own value.

Thanks for this fascinating analysis of your views on value.

Essentially yours,
Ham