[MD] Essentials for target practice

[Ham Priday]

Good Morning, John --


> For an idealist, thinking IS knowing for certain, because certainly
> knowing is only a thought, and knowing one holds a thought is as
> certain as anything...

Of course knowing anything "for certain" is a dangerous precipice to stand 
on.  But knowing that one holds (possesses) a thought -- that the thought is 
his own -- is critical to epistemological understanding, whether it's 
idealism or objectivism.  Regrettably, Pirsig has never made this clear to 
me.  There's so much talk about thoughts and ideas being "social patterns", 
and intellect belonging to a level one must "attach to", that I lose 
confidence in Pirsig's epistemology.  I'm skeptical of a philosophy that 
does not acknowledge the proprietary nature of conscious awarness.

> Without freedom, there can be no choice.  I think Mr. Pirsig says it
> differently, without Quality there can be no choice, but I'd guess we're
> both saying the same things.

Without Value and a free agent there can be no choice.  A universe evolving 
to goodness or perfection for its own sake is morally meaningless and does 
not allow for freedom.  Individuals are not free if their choices are 
predetermined by Nature, God, or Quality.  My concern is that the Pirsigians 
have so convoluted human consciousness that anything resembling original 
thought or personal preference has been rejected as SOMist dogma.  Arlo came 
close to describing this state of affairs with you and Platt in the A.I. 
thread.  You had suggested that "the idea is an act of creation, through an 
individual intellectually responding to some social pattern or some socially 
accepted or presented ideas."

[Arlo]:
> Yes, the idea is an act of "creation", not by something apart from us,
> but BY us responding to Quality.
>
> The troubling word here is "from".  Ideas do not come "from" anywhere
> in some sense that they existed elsewhere and are then delivered to us.
> Ideas come from the response to Quality, the moment of pure experience.
>
> What we have to keep in mind is that "creation" does not occur BY
> something else, it occurs IN RESPONSE to Quality. "Creation" is what
> WE do . . .

To Platt he responded:
> If DQ "creates", then we are mere automatons. No, WE create.
> WE create IN RESPONSE to Dynamic Quality. It is the soil which
> makes the flower possible.

I hate to agree with Arlo, but he's right on this issue.  Not only do WE 
create ideas and concepts, we actualize the objects and events that give 
"being" to our value-sensibility. Where he errs is in accusing you and Platt 
of "Qualigod manipulation" which is the ontological thrust of Pirsig's 
Quality thesis.

[John]:
> Josiah desribes this solution,

"The Universe, as Subject-Object, contains a complete and perfect
image, or view of itself. . . . *Whatever is, is a part of a self-imaged
system* . . ."

> In an update of Berkeley’s principle that *esse est percipi*, Royce
> makes being and being represented one. And what is the name
> of the self-imaging system that is (within) the universe?  Cantor,
> Royce, and Borges all call it the aleph.
>
> Now, that doesn't sound too afar from your terminology, Ham.
> "esse est percepi"?  Is that where the label "essence" derives from?

No, it comes from the Latin verb 'to be'.  But Berkeley's principle "To be 
is to perceive" is the ontogeny of Essentialism.  We perceive (more 
precisely, "sense") Value and experience it differentially as Being.  The 
physical universe is thus an experiential system as much as it is valuistic. 
And it is the cognitive individual, not culture or society, who creates 
existential reality.

> And how is any of this so different from a Pirsigian Quality, where
> subject and object are simultaneously born in one-ness?

You will have to explain what "A Pirsigian Quality" is, and what it means to 
be "born in one-ness", before I can offer an intelligent comment.  In my 
terms, as I've indicated above, existence is born of value-sensibility and 
converted by experience into discrete objects and events.  Simultaneity is 
not at issue.

> What means this "his own", Ham?  I recall Royce's refutation of the
> Schopenhaurian pessimism which sounds like what you're spouting here.
> Suppose a man identifies "his own"  values with those of a higher purpose,
> or higher value?  Men often try, sometimes they fail, sometimes they
> succeed, but at least you have to admit that it is possible for a man to
> identify his ego with the higher purposes of social and planetary harmony,
> and thus in serving "his own" his creative act is totally moral.
> Furthermore, even if a man is wrong, and mistakes some aspects or
> overlooks some consequence, if he truly cares he's capable of correcting
> his mistake, or admitting and helping those who come after him to see
> the mistakes, and rectify their consequences.  Proper attitude applied
> over infinite time will always overcome in the end.

Morality is a human invention designed to facilitate a social order.  I'm 
suspicious of doctrines that call for a "proper attitude", as I don't see it 
as commensurate with value realization.  Undoubtedly Muhammad, Hitler, and 
Mao-Tse-Tung all identified their values with a "higher purpose", destroying 
many lives in the process. The basis for societal value lies not in 
attitude, ideology or dogma but in love and respect for the sanctity of 
one's fellow human being.  But individual values must be tempered by 
reason -- that other uniquely human attribute without the exercise of which 
a harmonious society is impossible.

> As Royce points out, since the identification of the man's self with a
> higher purpose, isn't bounded by human lifespan, it is, in essence,
> immortal.

Royce's phrases would appear to be more profound than his philosophy.  What 
is immortal -- the "identification", the "self", or the "purpose?  And how 
are we to know or define the "higher purpose"?

Ham:
> There's no need to "utilize" Nothingness or Being, since neither is
> absolute in itself.

I'm afraid you have misquoted me.  The word was "ultimize", not "utilize". 
I coined it in reference to your complaint: "if you posit some sort of 
ULTIMATE nothingness surrounding or contextualising ULTIMATE being, as 
ontologically necessary... I don't think I can go there with you."

Thanks for the link to Peters' exposition which I shall read and report back 
to you on.  Since you've provided this before the Schain essay appears on my 
Values Page, I'll give you a head start.  The direct link from which I 
copied it is http://rschain1.tripod.com/The_Problem_of_Existence.html .

Happy reading,
Ham