[MD] The Dynamics of Value

[Ham Priday]

Hey, Mark --


> This post is intended to explore the birth of Value, it's
> incarnations, and its death.

Since you are running with my theme, I assume this exposition is intended 
primarily for me.  I shall therefore insert such comments as I feel 
necessary to reach an accord with your analysis.

> There appear to be two contrary positions as to its birth.  Either we
> are the source of value, or we are it's creation.  Both of these fit
> within a metaphysics of Quality, where Quality depicts the perspective
> of rhetoric.  That is, the song of existence.  A number of positions
> can be taken which logically extend the birth of value into different
> directions.  One of these could be the interplay of the subjective
> with the objective.  Value can be seen as either the body or the mind
> (to use an analogy).  It can be the material or the spiritual to use
> another analogy.  It is my present interpretation that Value is the
> source, not the result. ...

If you are interpreting my epistemology, you would be correct.  Value is the 
source (or ground) of differentiated existence.

> It [value] creates from the very smallest to the very largest.  It is
> inherent in our sense of time.  As such, the value which we sense is
> part of a larger value impinged on us.  In this way, man is not the
> measurement of all things that man measures, but instead, man is a
> measurement.  He is a feature of value.  An analogy for this would
> be the waves of an ocean.  Each wave is not creating it's ascendence
> and descendence, but is a property of the ocean.

Here I would substitute "experience" for "value", for value doesn't "create" 
as such, the observer does.  Rather than "a feature of value", man is the 
differentiator of value.  It is the differentiation of experience that 
creates or actualizes physical reality.

> A question could be: Why do I call this Value?   This can be
> analogized using the symbol of the Tao, the Yin and Yang.  There is
> a constant interplay of better and worse, darker and brighter, fairer
> and uglier, pleasure and pain, which defines every moment of existence.

Why even raise this question?  Pirsig himself maintained that we all know 
what Value (Quality) is, so there is no need to define it in Taoist terms.

> This cannot be a creation of man, because it exists without man.  For
> example, the notion of better or worse exists prior to man, and our
> incarnation interprets it in a human way.  Man does not have the
> power to make these things up, only reveal them in our own way.

This is completely wrong.  Measured (differential) value requires a 
conscious agent for its existence.  Protagoras was right: "Man is the 
measure of all things, of the existence of the things that are, and the 
non-existence of the things that are not."  If man (the negate) did not have 
this power, objects could not be delineated and experienced.

> In the same way that a prism can distinguish light into various colors
> (or frequencies), Value can be differentiated into various forms.
> Using the light analogy, the color red has longer and shorter
> wavelengths comprising it, which a the subtler grades of color.  It
> can be said that Value creates a pull, which would mean that it is
> directional.  While such directionality may seem in all directions,
> historically it is possible to note the sum total of that direction
> and map it. ...

Value is both "pull" and "push".  It is our affinity for (attraction to) the 
Absolute Source and our repulsion of that which negates (diminishes or 
subverts) it.  Thus, we experience a range of values relative to and 
representative of our well-being, as determined by our proprietary 
value-orientation.

> Specific values do die.  This would imply that the source of all
> values tends to oscillate.  Another wave analogy can describe such
> behavior, that is the rising and falling of value.  Some values which
> can represent spiritual dogma can arise like rogue waves, and last for
> thousands of years, only to disappear again.  This would imply that
> the directional attribute of Value is temporary and ever changing.  It
> could be considered cyclical like a sine wave.  If one is to be in
> harmony, one must read the waves and ride them.  This is also
> called becoming one with Tao.

Again, you are making what amounts to subjective disposition into a 
complicated formula.  Inasmuch as the creation of specific values is the 
individual's doing, any change or "oscillation" of experienced values 
represents the subject's perspective at a given time.

> Perhaps someone should write The Tao of Motorcycle Maintenance.
> Oh, somebody already has.

Thanks for your thoughtful analysis, Mark. With your approval, I should like 
to bypass Taoism completely (since it does not acknowledge the self) and 
present an 'essentialistic' epistemology based on the Philosophy of 
Individual Valuism.  Are you game for this?

Have a pleasant weekend,
Ham