[MD] The Self?

[Ham Priday]

Krimel --


[Ham]:
> The problem indeed lies in regarding the Self as a "thing" or an
> "existent",   But the solution is not to regard it as "a process"
> but as subjective sensibility which is prior to objective events
> in process.

[Krimel]:
> I don't see how calling it "Subjective Sensibility" solves anything.
> It sounds like a proper noun to me. Categorically speaking that's
> a thing.  You can't use the name game to make it go away.
> So categorically speaking I'll stick with process which is a set of
> relationships.

Yes, Sensibility is a noun, just as Quality is a noun.  If you must speak
"categorically", Subjective Sensibility is a category.  But it is not a "set
of relationships."  It is the unit of awareness that identifies the
individual Knower.

 [Ham]:
> Each of us is a different point of view.  The difference is in time,
> space, and the values perceived...

[Krimel]:
> It is hardly a mystery that each individual has a different self.
> The body part of the self is a complex chemical soup.  Each of us
> produces a slightly different body order. We should expect to see
> individual differences in the chemistry of the nervous system
> as well.  And then you have the problem of each self occupying
> different physical space.

What do you call the part of self that is not a body?  If each of us
produces a body, then this "non-body part" is accountable.  This is what I 
call the Self.  It is the "awareness" contingent of being-aware.

[Ham]:
> Is it a "top down" fallacy to consider the self as the PoV agent?

[Krimel]:
> Not if you see that the self constructs itself from the bottom up.

[Ham]:
> You are the KNOWER of reality as an accumulation of patterns
> and processes.  This knowledge is an intellectual construct of
> your value sensibility.

[Krimel]:
> I don't know that my accumulated patterns could be considered
> reality, even by me. I have found that my memory is riddled with
> encoding errors and often is at odds with the recollection of
> others.  But it is a conceptual construct. I think value sensibility
> is much more physiological like our revulsion to excrement and
> fear of blood.  But if you want to get all reductionist, sensation
> comes prior to value sensibility.

Sensation IS value sensibility, which is the core self.  That's what I've
been saying.  Do you think emotions such as revulsion and fear are
physiological?  Consider the epistemology: You are unconscious, and the 
endorphines in your nerve synapses are behaving physiologically as if 
reacting to revulsion or fear.  But where is the revulsion or fear?  It it
is not sensible (i.e., made aware) it cannot be revulsion or fear.
Insensible emotion is an oxymoron.
Unrealized value is a myth.
A world that is not experienced does not exist.

 [Krimel]:
> You seem to be talking about what some would call executive
> function. I think Buddhists call it the watcher. As I have said
> I think this is a complex pattern that results from an enormous
> amount of instantaneous parallel processing.

Watcher, Knower, Subject, Observer all refer to the Self.  By whatever label 
you choose, this is the individual's cognitive awareness.  It is neither a 
"thing" nor a "function".  Intellection is a function because it 
differentiates sensible value into the discrete components of experiential 
existence.  That's where "process" enters into our worldview.

[Krimel]:
> Our conceptual patterns are our construction but they are
> rooted in our senses. The senses are our interface with the
> physical world. We transduce physical energy into patterns
> of electro-chemical interactions. We encode the physical.
> Our concepts and understanding are always dependent on
> sensory confirmation. As I have said illusions are not false,
> they are just particular ways of organizing sense data.
> We are capable of having multiple views and understandings
> of our selves. It is our capacity to shift point of view that
> makes us unique. And we can see it developing in our young.

As incredulous as it seems, you have just restated my position in your own 
words.  I find nothing in your statement that I disagree with.  But I would 
emphasize that "having multiple views and understandings of our selves" in 
no way means having someone else's conscious awareness. Every self is a 
unique and individual point of view.

> If you insist on using your terms, then Self does not invent
> values, but values invent the Self.

As I define the Self as value-sensibility, I can understand how values might 
be conceived to "actualize" selfness.  However, it's inconsistent with the 
epistemology of Essentialism.  Not that you particularly care, but I 
consider Sensibility primary to value realization.  Value doesn't "realize"; 
it simply represents what is beyond sensibility.  I like to think of it as 
desire's "referent".  Socrates described desire as what man wants and does 
not possess: "...what he neither has nor himself is--that which he 
lacks--this is what he wants and desires."  If Socrates was right, then the 
object of desire, the thing wanted, is the desire's value.  In the 
differentiated world of existence, we yearn for value and experience it in 
passing things and events.  But pure (metaphysical) Sensibility needs no 
object; Value is already and immutably its undivided Essence.  That's why in 
my ontogeny Sensibility is negated from Essence to create the entity 
Being-Aware.  Since the individuated self is incapable of sensing Essence 
directly, it experiences the Source as the value of otherness.

I think this discussion has been both productive and amiable.  Are you as 
pleased that we are fundamentally in accord as I am?  Or is it more fun to 
quibble over terminology and accuse me of conjuring up "fantasies"?

Thanks Krimel,
Ham