[MD] Essentials for target practice

[John Carl]

A week later, Ham.  Sorry, it's been a busy week.

On Sun, Jul 4, 2010 at 11:14 PM, Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:

>
> Hello John --
>
> ...and Happy Independence Day to you, too.
>
>
> [Ham, previously]:
>
>  "Appearance" relates to my third tenet: "Existence is the
>> appearance of differentiated otherness."
>>
>
> [John]:
>
>> Appearance relates to sight.  What about the blind men
>> confronting the differentiated experience of the otherness
>> of the elephant?
>>
>> Existence has to be more than appearance.  Appearances
>> can be deceiving, but the fact of existence is not.
>>
>
> Ham:


> Do you prefer "image", "phenomenon", or "representation"?  Take your pick.



Image relates to sight.

Phenomenon can be mental, imaginative or descriptive.

Representation relates to second-hand symbolic communication.  So I'd say
you should pick one that best represents your meaning here.




> Heidegger didn't limit the meaning of his "world of appearances" to visual
> impressions, and neither do I.  Existence presents itself to ALL of our
> senses to convince us of its reality or beingness.  Yes, appearances can be
> deceiving; but so is the "facticity" of existence, for it depends on how
> real "being" is to the subject.  If being and nothing are the only true
> contingencies for you, then existence is your reality.



Well first, it seems awfully confusing to refuse to equate appearance and
sight.

But I certainly got no quibble with existence being my reality.  Or vice
versa.
Ham:

Your sense of the cosmos as "directional" and "intelligent" is your
> intellectual realization of its value.  That "pull on your compass" is your
> psycho-emotional orientation to its undefined source.  You feel its presence
> not as a specific image or impression, but as the power of its attraction.
> It is this power which orders "the evidences of your organic senses" so that
> what you experience objectively represents what you sense innately.  Once
> the tactile, visual, auditory, and olfactory sense organs are aroused by
> value-sensibility, you actualize value as beingness.  Value is the "ghost"
> that creates your existential reality.
>
>
Makes sense to me. I like that last line, Value is the ghost that creates
existence.

Nice.

Are you sure you're not a Pirsigian?



>
> What is a "proper attitude toward death and non-being"?  If it's still an
> "irreconcilable conflict with your worldview," then perhaps that worldview
> needs some adjustment.
>
> For example, you ask: "How can an individual be anything but a valued part
> of the whole?"  The essentialist does not believe himself to be a "part of
> the whole" because the whole (Absolute Essence) has no parts.  Instead the
> individual is cast off from the whole to become the whole's "sensor"--a free
> agent that 'ex-ists' on the periphery of the whole so as to realize its
> value, much like the gnat that flits about a beam of light to absorb its
> energy.



Not quite sure here.  If the whole doesn't have parts, then how can the self
be cast off from it?



>  Sensibility determines the individual's being, not its essence, and being
> is only provisional (as we discussed before).  Only the Value of Essence can
> be realized, and this requires an independent agent   The essence of an
> individual is the value realized in a lifetime.  It complements the value
> realized in all lifetimes which, in turn, is complemented by the Absolute
> Value of Essence.
>


I think I mainly agree.  I think sensibility is the birth of being.  Naming
is fundamental to being.  Does that jive?


>
> I submit that Value is the individual's link to his eternal Source.  No
> "proper attitude" is prerequisite, only the nurturing of one's sensibility
> to the values that sustain this link. (Have you ever considered that
> possibility as a way out of your conflict, John?)
>
>

I didn't even know I had a conflict.


>
>  You ever tune a guitar Ham?  And say to yourself when it sounds
>> right, "ah, all is within systemic order."   I bet you have, now that I
>> think about it.
>>
>
> I've tuned a piano, a synthesizer, a violin, and my wife's harp, never a
> guitar.  But I
> do understand the relevance of systemic order to "being in tune" -- even in
> the mystic sense of being attuned with Nature.  Perhaps this is another way
> of expressing the optimized orientation of value-sensibility suggested
> above..
>
>
And a more harmonious-sounding one at that!



> [Ham]:
>
>  Of course, I say we set the "tune" that nature plays,
>> and whatever "eros" Whitehead is referring to is man's,
>> not nature's.
>>
>
> [John]:
>
>> Uh Ham, you can't be that pathetic. You must understand
>> that to have an erotic relationship, it takes two.
>>
>> Two that are fundamentally different, and fundamentally attracted.
>>
>
> Oh, I understand that perfectly, John.  In fact, Value would not exist
> without a Self/Other dichotomy.  It requires both sensibility (proprietary
> awareness) and desiderata (the otherness desired), which is why I'm opposed
> to dismissing or rejecting Cartesian duality.
>


I think the big point I'd make, is that its just as foolish to make the S/O
dichotomy fundamental to Value, as you say it is foolish to make Value
fundamental to the S/O.

In fact, I'd say if I had to pin one or the other down as fundamental, I'd
put Value first, since without valuation, the Self doesn't realize any
Other.



>
> But I'm mystified by the dissertation which ended your last post.  Is it
> yours or quoted from another source?  If it's yours, I'll  have some
> comments to make at a later time.



It was from Royce.  I promised a "juicy quote" and that one was handy,
Altho, like I said, more meaty than juicy.  But I figure a guy like you,
Ham, is worthy of some meat.

Looking forward to you "later time".

The late John

 all meanings, in the end, will prove to be internal meanings, that this
> which
> the internal meaning most loves, namely the presence of concrete
> fulfilment,
> of life, of pulsating and originative will, of freedom, and of
> individuality, will prove, for our view, to be of the very essence of the
> Absolute Meaning of the world.
>