[MD] Subjectivity in the MOQ

[Ham Priday]

Hi Michael  --


> Some questions on your Essentialism:

Okay.

> Are you saying that without a sensible value agent the "concept" of
> reality is meaningless, or rather more straightforwardly that reality
> still exists, just without meaning? Isn't the latter a little like the "if 
> a
> tree falls in the woods" question?

Since I don't want to get into a contest as to whether a concept is 
"reality", or vice-versa, I'll simply say that existence is meaningless 
without a sensible agent.  (Existence is the MoQ's primary reality, anyway.) 
I contend that the agent's value-sensibility "creates" the things and events 
that constitute experiential existence.  Yes, it's like the tree falling in 
the woods with no one to observe it, except that the continuity and 
universality of existence is ensured by the same value that defines its 
constituents.  So Essentialism is not exactly solipsism.

> You refer to the "role" of a sensible agent. Doesn't "role" imply
>  purpose? If so, what is the purpose of Value, and how was/is it\
> that it came into being?

Role does imply purpose, and so do I.  The "moral principle" here is quite 
simple.  The purpose of Value is to be realized, and the role of the agent 
is to realize it.  The second part of your question involves ontogeny, which 
is not so simple.  Suffice it to say that the agent is estranged from the 
primary source (Essence) at its inception, and can only experience its Value 
relationally and incrementally as being-aware.  (More on Creation follows 
below.)

> If as we have discussed you feel Value does not exist except in the
> sensing, was there Value prior to the existence of sensing agents?
> Is it not just as likely that Value is simply a by-product of the sensing
> agent having a sensing ability rather than the agent being a product of
> Value? In other words: isn't your "Value" what it is just a by-product
> of sensing agents being able to sense something? I guess this is a
> chicken/egg question.

I define Value as "the relational affinity for the wholeness of Essence 
which binds subject to object."  My Creation hypothesis is predicated on a 
negation by Essence such that Sensibility is provisionally separated from 
the source.  This establishes primary "Difference" as a 
Sensibility/Otherness dichotomy from which individual subjects and objects 
arise in time and space.  Although, theoretically, Sensibility is the 
"potential for Value", as a negate, Value is not realized until it becomes 
proprietary to a being-aware -- the sensible agent (i.e., subject) whose 
experience objectivizes existence.

Your intuition is right on the mark, Michael!  I hadn't thought of it this 
way, but Value is, indeed, "a by-product of the agent's sensing ability" 
rather than a product of Value.  However, the "something" the agent senses 
(pre-experientially at least) is not a "thing" but the Otherness which 
represents the essential half of the dichotomy.
Incidentally, this isn't a "chicken & egg" question until you introduce 
"before" and "after" into the ontogeny.  You have kindly spared me that 
dilemma by your careful choice of the present tense.

>From the questions you ask, I suspect that you've had at least a sneak peek 
at my on-line thesis.  (Typically the first round of questions is at a much 
lower level of comprehension.)  How good are you at logic?  I could use some 
help with the "negation" theory which still doesn't pass muster for the 
logicians I talk to.

Thanks for your interest in my philosophy of Essence, Michael.  I look 
forward to further discussion, either on the MD or off-line, at your 
discretion.

Essentially yours,
Ham