[MD] The Intellectual Level of Quality, according to Mark

[Ham Priday]

Dear Craig --

When I asked you to tell me where I've lost you, you replied:

> Valuing...impossibility.
>
> Not to be rude, but I did not understand one sentence.
> You seem to know what you mean, but I would need some
> examples in order to catch up.  For instance, "the essence
> of that reality which is sensed as Value": What about the
> reality which is NOT sensed as Value?  Does it have an
> essence?  If so how do we distinguish the two essences?

Okay, you were lost from the git-go.  I shall have to be more specific, but 
I can't offer "examples" until you understand the fundamentals.

First of all, there is but one Essence, and it is Reality Itself. 
Everything else is either a reflection of Essence or some valuistic 
construct of the mind.  All sensibility is Value sensibility' and, as Pirsig 
says, "what has no value does not exist."  But Essence is infinitely more 
than what human beings are capable of sensing.

> Or "Valuing, experiencing, and intellectualizing (translating)
> are all aspects of a single process called Consciousness,
> and the entire process is subjective (meaning proprietary
> to the individual)...the subjective agent (self) is not [essential]."
> If the "entire process is subjective" wouldn't that mean "the
> subjective agent (self) IS essential"?

Subjectivity may be "essential" to existents like you and me, but not to the 
absolute Source.  I know it's a hard truth to swallow.  Look at it this way: 
Human beings are passing reflections of the greater reality that is their 
source.  Shadows and reflections are mere "effects" of Essence, like the 
images in your mind.  Metaphysically, all otherness is a negation of the 
Source which is 'Not-other'.  That was Cusa's theorem, and it makes perfect 
sense from the essentialist's point of view.

Here's another analogy that may help.  Human beings are "borrowed property" 
from the moment they are born into the world.  Our physical bodies and 
biological functions are dependent on and sustained by "Being" which we 
don't create but inherit from Nature.  Our thoughts and feelings mirror the 
interaction of experienced things and events we don't control.  We live on 
borrowed time in a state of health determined mainly by genetics, acquiring 
knowledge, property and wealth that we "can't take with us" through the exit 
door.  How can such meager lives be essential by any standard?

But there's a brighter side to this story.  We are value-sensible creatures, 
and Value IS essential, because it's that aspect of Essence which we affirm 
with each and every experience life brings us.  If the truth be told, Value 
is the essence of our reality.  It is man's link to the Not-other whose 
brightness our lives reflect.

Hopefully I've shed some light on the philosophy of Essence here, some of 
which may get through.

Thanks for your continued interest and patience, Craig.

Essentially yours,
Ham