[MD] the meaning Hobbes's meaning

[Michael Poloukhine]

> HP:
> Interesting that you would choose "electricity" for your analogy. 

MP: After writing it all out, I realized magnetism would be a better analogy; Its 
there only as something affecting things which it can affect. Does a magnetic 
field exist outside those things which are affected by it? Hard to say, right? Only 
way to know is to use something that can measure it without being affected by 
it, and that, byt definition would not be able to measure it ...

We say something has Value or Quality only in so much as those are ways in 
which we measure our experiences. But just because our ruler isn't there to 
measure it (and then in our particular way) does not by default lead to the 
conclusion that the thing which we measure using that ruler ceases to exist if 
we cease to exist.

So, in the end, I still agree and disagree. If that makes any sense.

> HP:
> Where is the value of the pie before it is tasted? 
> Does it make sense to say that it "exists potentially"?
MP: I think so, yes. All potentials exist; its just that the vast majority of them 
remain unrealized.

> HP:
> I think you get my point to Marsha.  Quality or Value without
> realization is meaningless. 
MP: In so much as we wish to discuss them in an exclusive and specific 
experiential context (ours), yes. But things which we have not yet experience do 
carry the potential for such Quality or Value.

> We are fundamentally in accord, Michael, except that I distinguish
> potentiality from actuality.  In my ontology, Essence is the "potential" for 
> EVERYTHING -- including sensibility.
MP: Ok, that makes more sense now, thanks. I did not appreciate that you 
separated actuality and potential in those terms. I'm just not sure I see RMP's 
Quality as having that separation. I could be wrong.

MP
----
"Don't believe everything you think."