[MD] atheistic and content

[MarshaV]

Greetings Ham,

Quite an interesting project, it seems like the negative of painting, and at times feels 
like straining to see the space between ones eyes. 
   

On Mar 13, 2010, at 12:12 PM, Ham Priday wrote:

> Hi Marsha --
> 
> 
> 
>> This "subjective agent" when looked for cannot be found.  There is experience as
>> awareness, but all that can be said or thought about  such awareness it is not:
>> not this, not that.  I do not know how an explanation of such awareness can ever be true.  
>> Quality, as  unknowable, indivisable and undefinable, seems the best we can say;
>> it is pure experience.
>> 
>> Your posts, of all, drive me tongue twisted.
> 
> That's interesting, Marsha, because I find your posts verbally twisted.  And that leads
> to conceptual confusion.

I don't doubt it.  But concepts (static patterns) are mental constructs, analogies upon analogies.  


>  For example, "there is experience as awareness" implies that there is also experience
> that is not awareness. Have you ever had an experience that you were not aware of?  
> (I'll assume the answer is no.)  

No would be a wrong assumption.  The standard example is driving here or there and upon 
arrival having no awareness of the driving experience.  Most experience is outside awareness 
and later what is useful seems to be constructed into a story based on patterns.  


> Experience is the content of conscious (subjective) awareness.  You cannot have one
> without the other.  And you don't have to "look for" the subject: it is YOU, the Knower
> of your experience.

From investigation I can find no self in direct experience; the self is created when the 
story-telling begins.  Knowing is all that can be directly experienced, the known and 
the knower are constructed based on patterns from the past.   It seems there is direct 
experience until the mind attaches and spins a web of meaning.  It seems to me when 
you say content, you are talking about patterns.  There are no boundaries in direct 
experience.  The boundaries come later.  
 
 
> "Not this, not that" is how we describe undefined or "unknown" phenomena.

Unknown being unpatterned experience.  


> How can you call the Knower an "unknown"?  

I call the Knower a static pattern.  


> Awareness is the subjective locus of all experience and the knowledge derived from it.  

It seems to me that knowing is the patterning of experience constructed upon awareness.


> All experience --  including its relative Quality or Value -- is dependent on the cognizant
> subject of our relational world.  WE are the agents who bring Value into being.  Without
> wareness there is no experience, hence no being and no knowledge.

There is unpatterned experience and patterned experience.  Patterned experience is analogy.  
Your 'WE are the agents who bring Value into being.' is analogy.  I see it more as without  
experience there is no knowledge, whether one is aware or not.  


> I can appreciate that this concept is mind-twisting to a staunch Pirsigian.

It's the investigation of the nature of static patterns of value that seemed to hold the key.  


> But if you understand what I'm saying, and reflect on it for a moment or two, perhaps
> it will help to untwist your tongue.  It certainly should straighten out your epistemology.  
> If I'm right, it will be evident in your next epistle.
> 
> Good luck and thanks, Marsha.
> 
> Essentially yours,
> Ham 


Thank you Ham.  I don't think I have written anything less tongue twisted than before, but
it is challenging to try.  


Marsha

 
___