[MD] The Dynamics of Value

[Ham Priday]

Hi John --

On Mon. Feb. 28, 2011 at 2:26 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ok Ham,
>
> I'll try again.  My response was bounced so I have to either trim
> a lot out, or cut it up into little pieces.  I've been trying to decide
> what is the best solution.  So forgive what might seem excessive
> editorial snippage in my ongoing attempt to focus upon the heart
> of our dialogic differences.
>
> "Theoretically speaking, I cannot find or even define the truth in
> terms of my individual experience, without taking account of my
> relation to the community of those who know. This community,
> then, is real whatever is real."
>
> That's reality, Ham.  The only real one you'll ever know.  As
> Descartes famously should have said, "I think, therefore 16th
> century French Culture and I exist."

I never quite understood that cultural twist on the Cogito which some find 
so clever.
John, I think you exaggerate the influence of the social community.  Other 
individuals can only verbally confirm what you yourself know or experience. 
Their confirmation may be reassuring, but truth doesn't necessarily reside 
in the majority viewpoint.

> Right.  But whence come the values they "share"?  The values
> come before the meetings and can only arise through the interaction
> of the individual with their environment.  THEN consensus is
> sought in meetings and adjustments are made.

You say the values "come before" the interaction, yet "arise" afterwards. 
This seems to imply that values are "out there" somewhere, pre-formed and 
waiting to be picked up, shared or adopted by the crowd.  That is not my 
understanding of value dynamics.  To reiterate my position...

Firstly, value sensibility is proprietary to the self.  Epistemologically, 
Value is the desire or attraction of the self for the otherness from which 
it is estranged.  This sensibility is intrinsic and primary to the self or 
psyche and is not a result of experience or intellecton.

Secondly, desire seeks 'desiderata' for its satisfaction.  Since otherness 
is sensed as pure Essence-Value, we create our own desiderata through the 
experience of being.  By differentiating essential Value into aesthetic, 
moral, and intellectual precepts, we turn sensory experience into the finite 
objects and phenomena that comprise our being-in-the-world.  This process is 
what I call the actualization of experiential reality.  It is how we bring 
Value into the world as representative beingness.

Lastly, inasmuch as all humans sense Essence-Value, the parameters of our 
world -- space, time, relation, and the laws of nature -- are universal. 
Only the perspective differs from one individual to another.  The 
prioritization of differentiated value is unique for each individual, which 
is what individualizes experiential reality and makes the universe 
"qualitatively" different for each value agent.  (I've hypothesized that 
ultimately, it is our identification with a unique and distinct 'Value 
Complement' that closes the gap of nothingness and affirms our essential 
Oneness.)

> When a dog barks, its more than a simple stimulus response.
> The dog has a concept of "stranger", which is at play in it's
> behavioral displays.  It's impossible to think of any creature
> acting consistently without conceptualization to drive the action.
> I've observed dogs display evidence of concepts such as guilt,
> affection and fear.  I've had enough interactions with both horses
> and dogs (the most social my animal acquaintances) that I
> believe firmly that the patterns of thinking they display are
> close enough to those I experience in my self and observe in
> my fellow humans that I can intuit another mind - another being
> which has concepts for itself and for other things as well. We
> conceptualize our emotional reactions and so do the animals.
> In fact, this is the one thing it seems that computer intelligence
> will never be able to do and what distinguishes what we term
> "living intelligence" vs. "artificial intelligence".

I cannot quarrel with your conclusions, except to point out that emotional 
reactions observed in animal behavior are not necessarily value-related or 
the result of aesthetic, moral or intellectual discrimination.

> I agree that there is an order of conceptualization which we term
> "intellect", which is above mere animal intelligence. So perhaps our
> difference on this question has to do with how we define concept.
> I say that concepts are discrete mental patterns meant to represent
> some "thing" either internal or external, and since I also can't
> preclude the question of the possibility of extra-terrestrial 
> intelligence,
> for those two reasons, I can't go along with the extreme
> anthropocentricism of your view.
>
> If you are arguing that the search for Essence is futile, then I'd agree.
> There is no Essence, only relations - or as my friend Royce calls them
> "interpretations" or as my friend Wallace terms them "entanglements
> between", or as my friend Pirsig puts it, "Quality".

This sounds very much like Mark's concept of differentiation which, as I've 
argued to him, cannot create without a primary source.  Difference, 
relations, interpretations, and entanglements all allude to an objective 
referent and are meaningless in its absence.  You may as well try to 
describe the cutting up or apportioning of nothingness.

> I understand your point about the individual's freedom to choose
> and draw lines wherever he/she will.  But I think you go too far
> when deriving the meaningfulness of the individual's choice from
> himself, rather than where it rightly belongs - on the entanglement
> between. On the correspondence of choice with reality. That our
> choices have relative consequences in the world and this
> interpretation of our choice is the real fundament of our choice
> and our being.  We do tend to reify our value choices, but not
> necessarily so.  Wisdom is possible.  Holding our discriminations
> lightly, is possible.

I don't derive much insight from the conflict of "entanglements", if that's 
what you mean, and I'm not at all sure that "holding our discriminations 
lightly" is a commendable admonition.  Value prioritization calls for more, 
not less, discrimination in our experience.  In music and the arts, for 
example, the more discriminating the observer or listener is, the greater 
his appreciation of its value.  I would submit that this rule applies to the 
life-experience as well.

Thanks for your thoughts, John.

Essentially yours,
Ham