[MD] The Dynamics of Value

[Ham Priday]

Yon John --

[Ham before]:
>> Unless what you mean by "natural environment" is human society--
>> "the social milieu"--I can't relate Quality or Value to Nature.
>> The laws and principles of Nature are the teleological order of
>> the cosmos; the code of moral behavior is a majority consensus
>> of individual values shared in common.

[John]:
> But Ham, from whence does this "majority consensus arise"?
> There is only one plain and simple answer to my mind - it arises
> from those interrelations and interactions with the environment that
> the individuals have in common.  The "teleological order of the
> cosmos" is the only known source of our being, and thus the only
> valid source of our values.  Admittedly, we have a willful, creative
> aspect of choosing our values, but ultimately it is the conformity
> of our interpretations to our environmental context which give
> teeth to such abstract ideas as "truth" and "justice" and "freedom".

People relate and interact individually with their environment.  It's called 
experience.  A "majority consensus" is achieved when a quorum of individuals 
negotiate and agree on the values they want to share with each other.  This 
is how collective morality arises, and it encompasses the establishment of 
laws that govern  society and prescribe penalties for behavior that does not 
conform to the social norm.

> "Individually" is just as much a misnomer as "collective thought".  For 
> one
> thing, the very vocabulary of our thinking is socially formed and for
> another, any thinking is done in response to a social milieu.  Either we 
> are
> responding to or reacting against, what some other has said.  And we think
> and express our thoughts and words, into this milieu in the expectation of
> how the other will react.  If a thought is expressed, purely 
> individualistically,
> can it even be said to exist?

That depends on whether an expressed thought or idea can be said to "exist", 
not on how many individuals accept or believe it.  .

> And personally, after having done more and more reading into this critique
> of Rand sitting open in front of me at the moment, I question whether that
> woman is capable of real thought at all.  Maybe that's why she specified
> "man" -  to draw attention away from the shoddy foundation for the edifice
> she builds.

Okay, so you hold Randianism in low esteem.  (Had I known that, I would not 
have quoted her.)  I still maintain that thinking (conceptualizing) is a 
process proprietary to human individuals.

> Our root disagreement, right there.  You haven't examined this very
> deeply, Ham.  Otherwise you could not emphasize the "conscious self"
> and its "proprietary functions" quite so glibbly without examining more
> deeply what those concepts are, and how they are derived.

Okay, so tell me, John.

> All language is conceptualization, although not all conceptualization 
> falls
> into the category of "language", I'd still argue that conceptualization
> comes about through the process of attempting to interpret the "signs" of
> reality.  And thus, is even MORE universal than language.  I'd argue that
> its the universality of conceptualized, of the organism and its 
> environment,
> which leads to the universality of language.  In fact, that seems so 
> obvious
> to me, that I wouldn't even know how to begin to argue for it.  I guess 
> I'd
> like to see how you could possibly argue against it, and then show you the
> error of your ways.

What are "the signs of reality", and why are they not as individually 
discernable as any experiential phenomenon?

> Ham:
>
>> Metaphysics is not about what man "wants" but about what man "is".
>> If we are content to simply relate ourselves to the finite things and 
>> events
>> passing before us, how can we hope to get beyond this otherness and
>> discover the "essence" of Reality?
>
> John:
>
> This seems to be a real hangup in our discussion - the point I keep making
> that your interpretation of "what a man *is" *is a view you *want* to 
> hold.
> You've pointed out that this is obvious, but what you seem to fail to
> understand then, is that this makes the distinction you offer about the
> difference between *wants* and *is,* therefore meaningless.
>
> We can never get beyond this otherness to discover the essence of Reality,
> Ham.  The only essence of Reality that is ever possible, is only *through*
> otherness, not beyond it.  This seems to be a big hangup for you - 
> distaste
> for otherness.  Hmmm... that's a shame.  Since's is an impossible trap for
> you.

I have no more "distaste for otherness" than I have for myself or my fellow 
sojourners.  It would appear that Science has explored and investigated 
virtually every aspect of objective otherness for several centuries now, 
without discovering the essence.of Reality.  They've penetrated otherness --  
even broken it down into quantum particles they can only theorize because 
they're too small to identify or measure.  Unless the "essence" they're 
looking for is energy or mass, they haven't found it.

[Ham]:
> I understand that the exchange of gases in plant photosynthesis provides
> the oxygen we need to breathe.  As a human being I am dependent on
> the being of nature and all the biological processes this implies.  As a
> thinking self, however, I embody another kind of reality.  So the question
> comes down to this: Do I feed my stomach while allowing my soul to
> starve?  I'd like to make this limited lifespan account for something more
> than a mere pass through existence.

[John]:
> Amen!  Now yer talking sense.  I agree completely.  And I ask, for the
> umpteenth time - what is this "something more" if not a social pattern?
> Because without the coninuation of the patterns we influence socially, our
> lives amount to little more than tree-food.  Is what I'm saying.

If reality reduces to individuals and social patterns, then you don't need 
anything more.  You can extrapolate "quality" from social patterns, I 
suppose, in which case "essence" has no meaning for you.  Of course. the 
reality you are conceptualizing by this logic is the physical universe which 
has been well mapped by objective science.  I'm not sure whether this 
approach to understanding can be called Philosophy, but it certainly doesn't 
pass as Metaphysics.

> I appreciate your explanation of your process.  I especially like your
> ending up with "a valuistic ontology".  I couldn't agree with you more
> on that point.  But I choke upon your "what really drives mankind is
> the desire for what he is not"  I'm afraid this phrase speaks more to
> your mind-set than mine.  What really drives me is the desire for what is,
> that I have not yet attained.  There are many things I am not, which I
> have no desire for at all.  For instance, I'm certainly not you, and I 
> have
> no desire to be.
>
> I see it simply thus - my valuistic ontology is centered upon what is - 
> the
> whole enchilada is the source of my values, and the more I can relate to,
> understand and encapsulate the whole enchilada, then the happier I am.
> What is not, that is, what I am not AND is not part of reality, I have no
> interest in.  Purple monsters floating in space?  I am not one of those, 
> and
> I have no desire to be so.

What Socrates understood was that we desire what we ourselves neither are 
nor possess.  That's another way of explaining "positive" Value.  But we 
polarize Value when we differentiate it; meaning that, like Quality, the 
range of values extends from negative to positive, bad to good, ugly to 
beautiful, repulsive to desirable, prosaic to magnificent, etc.  And the 
individual (anthropocentrically) stands smack in the middle of this 
valuistic balance.  This affords him the capacity to discriminate, morally 
and aesthetically, and to rationalize his decisions accordingly.

> I think there's more to "a valuistic ontology" than you are comprehending
> here.  There must be a positive spin - a direction upon the valuistic 
> axis,
> in order for value itself to be meaningful and the only really good
> postulations for this fundamental value, metaphysically speaking, that 
> I've
> understood, anyway, have come from Pirsig and Royce.  And I don't
> think I would have understood Royce, without Pirsig's help.  So it's a
> strange kind of inheritance, in a way.
>
> But there is a proper understanding of reality.  A relationship between
> subject and object that is "good".  It doesn't arise from the subject.  It
> isn't contained in any isolated object.  It dances around, this
> "entanglement between" and it's really the heart of this MoQ thingy which
> you seem to keep rejecting for some reason that doesn't completely make
> sense to me.
>
> Yet.

It should be clear to you that I do not reject Value.  What I reject is the 
idea that Value (or Quality) is a universal force or entity that exists 
independently of man.  Value is relational: It is always sensed in terms of 
its relative benefit to the cognizant agent.  Without an observing subject, 
there is no value.  (Even Pirsig said that something that is not valued 
doesn't exist.)  I also do not consider Value per se as ultimate Reality or 
the primary source.  Those stipulations, along with my belief in the innate 
freedom of man, are what separates me from the MoQ doctrine.

I realize you covered a great deal more in your post.  This is running too 
long, but I'll be happy to address specific questions, John, if you'll 
single them out for me.

Cheers, and thanks again for your interest,
Ham