[MD] Marsha's (s)OL

[Ham Priday]

Dear Platt --



> Your philosophy would be a lot clearer to me and perhaps others
> if at the very beginning you had stated your belief in the premise that
> "Reality as we know it has emerged from a primary source I call
> 'Essence.'" (I presume that's accurate.)

How many times have you heard me complain here that Mr. Pirsig failed to 
acknowledge the Primary Source in his metaphysical thesis?   What could you 
possibly think I meant by "primary source"?  Quality doesn't create 
anything; it can't be the fundamental source.  Our appraisal of Quality 
comes from Experience which is the valuistic construction of physical 
reality.  But Experience as "the cutting edge" does not constitute the 
metaphysical source of Reality, since we don't create the self that has the 
experience.

Of course the Essence to which I refer is that source, that 'not-other' 
which is the progenitor of all difference and relation.

> I consider "experience" and "sensibility" to be synonyms.
> Our disagreement ultimately rests on this difference.

That is an epistemological position, Platt, not a philosophical argument. 
What I define as "experience" is the proprietary awareness of relational 
entities, their properties and dynamics, as constituents of a physical 
system.  I maintain that experience is "secondary" to value sensibility 
which is undifferentiated (i.e., non-intellectual) until it is experienced 
in relation to the cognizant subject.

Try considering DQ as the Source of your reality rather than its appearance. 
You don't "experience" that Source; you "feel" it emotionally or 
esthetically.  To experience Value, you must convert it (organically) to 
specific attributes of objects and events in your reality construct. 
Whatever you experience at a given time is an image, physical 
representation, or composite of sensual data about the finite world relative 
to yourself.  In other words, Value is what leads to Experience. 
Experience, in turn, is what leads to knowledge, which is all we can 
empirically know about reality.

> The more I attempt to translate your philosophy into plain English
> the more I find we have fundamental disagreements, the example
> cited above about the meaning of "experience" and "sensibility"
> being a case in point.

You have chosen to take a stand that aligns you with the MoQ's existential 
hierarchy, which is your prerogative.  Your difficulty (and mine) is that 
for you there is only one reality -- Existence divided into levels.  You 
accept the appearance of diversity at face value, and look for metaphors to 
paint this reality as a cogent, moralistic whole.  RMP has provided a 
euphemistic picture to support your position.  That picture not only is 
incomplete, in my opinion, it doesn't happen to represent the ontology of 
Essentialism.

But at least you now have a better understanding of my thesis, and we can 
argue for our respective  positions in our own terms, knowing that our 
differences are conceptual rather than semantic.  I don't know if this is 
making "progress", or "moving foward" (to use the vernacular of politics), 
but it's always a good first step in philosophy to clear the mystery of 
misunderstood concepts.

Thanks for the discussion, Platt.  It's been frustrating, but I've enjoyed 
it.

Kindest regards,
Ham