[MD] The Dynamics of Value

[118]

Hey Ham,
More waffling below.

On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 10:55 PM, Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:>
> For something to be sensed, its source must be other than the sensor.  There
> is no "outside" or "inside" to Essence, which is the source of Value.  But
> the sensing self is not the Source; it is a negate of Essence --what might
> be considered a "synthetic other".  Sensibility is "borrowed" from Essence,
> just as Being is borrowed from Nature, and the self is the synthesis of
> these two essential aspects.  Essential Value (the white light entering the
> prism) is the undifferentiated or "primary object" of sensibility.

[Mark]
Yes indeed.  The source of what we sense is outside.  If we sense
Value or Quality, it is because it exists outside of us.  Perhaps what
you term negation is what I term Quality.  I would have to assume that
such negation is outside our personal ability to generated it, it is
thus given us.  If so, this negation must have a source of its own.
That source could well be Quality, as I have presented it.  By my
thinking, however, nothing needs to reside behind Quality, no further
source for its existence.  Why do you need to claim some other side?
How does this explain what is?
>
> I note that you deftly switch to "Quality" when you talk about comparing
> objects.  Grade 'A' eggs have more quality than Grade 'B' eggs, for example.
> This "pre-standardized" specificity is not well suited to personal
> "preference" as I understand Value.  But possibly it's what you are getting
> at when you interpret "a quality which is already there."  Where?  Is it on
> the carton label that's marked Grade A?  Or is it the appetite of the diner
> who prefers scrambled eggs to fried?   Quality may be measured universally
> in grades, numbers, or carrots, but the measure of a thing's Value is its
> desirability to the subject.  In that sense, also, Value is a better fit for
> your concept of "influencing the manner in which things unfold", which I
> call actualization.

[Mark]
I am not trying to be clever.  I am trying to relate to your Value as
I understand it.  For me, Value is one (human) form of Quality.  So,
don't get too caught up in the semantics.  For one to value Grade A
eggs more than Grade B, there must be something inherently providing
the observer with a difference between both types.  What is that thing
that separates the quality of eggs thus defining them relationally?
Let's call it Quality.  Quality does not exist in a single egg, it
only exists through the existence of another egg.  Why do we need two
eggs to discern quality?  The reason I am providing is that it IS what
separates the two eggs, metaphysically.  If one views the separation
rather than the object, we have Quality in our sites.  >
>
[Ham]
> That surprises me, Mark.  I'd be astonished if you could cite neurological
> or neuro-physical support for non-proprietary consciousness.  The closest
> I've ever come to this notion in my reading on the biological sciences was
> 'The Biology of the Spirit' by Edmund Sinnott, a botanist who regarded the
> universe as an extension of the psyche.
>
[Mark]
I have read several books on it, but have arrived at my own
conclusions.  The way we relate to our consciousness is through the
workings of the brain and body.  There is no way around this.  A tree
or a rock also relates through its physical form.  The brain is
looking at what is behind it.  It is like a story presenting a concept
larger than the words which make it up.  I will try to remember some
of the books  I have read on the subject, one recent read was by a
neurochemist, I returned it to the library, but I'll do a Google on
it.  Biologists are no different than physicists or preachers in this
sense.  Science is a tool, but it does not replace our ways of
thinking.

[Ham]>
> Again, you are defining Quality as the separation of one thought from
> another.  I understand how this relates to the "attention" of the subject.
> In my opinion, however, it misses the very nature of Value (or Quality)
> which is either aesthetic, intellectual, or moralistic.  Quantitative
> separation is more of a cognitive or focusing function than a valuistic
> process as I conceive it.
>
[Mark]
I would agree that separation is not the best word to use.  I could
use change, or difference, or segmentation.  What I am pointing to is
that things are different.  That difference is created by Quality.
For something to be aesthetic, intellectual, or moralistic, it must
have a frame of reference.  Things are more moral, they do not contain
morality in and of themselves.  These differences which we perceive
are created by Quality.

[Ham]
 > You say Quality (Value) is "what is present".  This of course supports
> Pirsig's thesis that EVERYTHING is Quality, which suggests that Value is
> Nature or the universe itself and we have only to "search it out".  I'm
> sorry, Mark, but this is not my idea of proprietary Value, nor do I view it
> as "a result of flux and change."  For me Value is our attraction to or
> desire for what is experienced, based on the orientation of our sensibility.
> In my epistemology, value-sensibility actually "drives" experience to
> produce the appearance of being in the world.  The relational order and
> differentiation of finite beingness is predesigned in the otherness that is
> sensibility's object.
>
[Mark]
The sense that everything is Quality comes easily from a reductionist
endeavor.  There is Quality making up Quality, all the way up and all
the way down.  There is no sharp demarcation between Otherness and
Self.  To create such a demarcation creates all sorts of logical
paradoxes.  If we are attracted to an experience, what is the source
for that attraction?  How does one rhetorically explain that?  It is
fine to say that it just exists for supernatural reasons, but this
leaves much up to the imagination.  You seem to be using value
sensibility to denote our senses.  It is then our senses which creates
experience.  I do not have a problem with this, since this is accepted
dogma.  What you are basically saying is that since we can feel, we
are alive.  I am suggesting that such a thing can be explained in
simple terms which relate beyond the act of sensing, towards what is
being sensed.  I also do not have any problem with predesign, since
that relates to notions that we can conceive of in pragmatic terms.
What is predesigned could well be that there is no predesign.

> What I sense at this juncture is that, although we both reject an
> "externalized" universe, your Quality is universal, whereas my Value is
> subjective.  Clearly, your worldview is closer to that of the MoQ.  How do
> you propose that we resolve this difference?  I'll admit the possibility
> seems rather hopeless.
>
[Mark]
Again, I would say that it is a matter of perspective.  Is the water
cold, or do we make it cold by feeling it?  I would subscribe to the
former.  Water has a cold Quality to us, that is outside our
subjective power to create.  But, in the end, it could well be two
sides of the same coin.  I believe we are flipping the same coin.
Perhaps we should see if we can discuss the coin itself.

Cheers,
Mark
>
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