[MD] The Dynamics of Value

[118]

Hi Ham,
Yes, the post was a theme of your suggestion, thanks for your reply.
I am exploring where the subjective and objective perspective of Value
takes us.  The point being to evaluate the rhetoric of each position.
I will respond to your comments where appropriate.

On Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 10:06 AM, Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:
> Hey, Mark --
>
[Mark before].
>
>> 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.
>
[Ham]
> 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.
[Mark]
Yes, this is the crux of the different perspectives.  I can read your
sentences above to mean that Value exists, and we differentiate it.
In this way, Value would have to supply the source for such
differentiation.  So, to summarize, Value exists without us, and we
differentiate it.  Is this correct?  Now, there is a difference
between actualizes and creates.  Something in existence can be
actualized, something can be created where it did not exist before.
This is an important distinction, and again points to whether man is
the measure of all things, or whether all things are a measure of man.

>[Mark before]
>> 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.
>
[Ham]
> 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.
[Mark]
The reason I raise this is in response to a question you provided a
little while ago which asked: If I hadn't read ZMM would I still call
this Quality?  We all know what Value is, we also all know about the
electron tunneling which occurs in our brains.  We also know everytime
our heart is beating where each red blood cells are going.  How can we
not know this, it is part of us, can't get any more personal than
that.  So when you state "know", are you referring to a symbolic
representation through the intellect, or are you pointing towards true
Knowing?  There is a big difference.  The purpose of defining it in
Taoist terms is to transfer it from an internal knowing, to an
intellectual knowing.  This is merely for the purposes of transferring
awareness.
>
[Mark before]
>> 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.
>
[Ham]
> 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.

[Mark]
OK, so here we have a difference of opinion.  I take it that your
assumption is that without our bodies, the subtle differentiations in
value would not exist.  I would have to ask, as I have before, where
does this differentiation arise?  Let us say we are looking at a
painting, so information comes in through our eyes, through the optic
nerve and is then distributed into the visual part of our brain.  This
is all done through communication.  Now this is processed and
interpreted by our frontal lobes as some kind of value.  This can all
be described by chemistry and pathways.  At some point there has to be
a value where there wasn't before.  It is as if, water going through a
bunch of pipes, has to become a song at some point.  The question I am
asking, is what is the transduction process from visual input to value
output.  This is important, because if you treat consciousness as a
black box, then you are missing some important logical steps.  If you
are going to say that it comes in valueless, and comes out with value,
you need to explore this process and try to explain it.  Hand waving
does not suit the argument.
>
[SNIP]
>[Ham]
> 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.

[Mark]
I am not quite sure I get this, but I like it.  The planets circle
around the sun in what can be described as a balance between
attraction towards and centrifugal force away from the sun.  There is
a balance there.  I like the notion that we are in a balance such as
that.  Can you expand on that statement?
>
[Mark before]
>> 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.
>
[Ham]
> 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.

[Mark]
It is not a complicated formula, it is the perspective that value
exists outside of us, and that we and our thoughts are representations
of such value.  There is the value ascribed to each of the levels,
such as the individual value, the societal value, and the intellectual
value.  Each one of these is a manifestation of Value.  Again, such
values cannot be created out of nothing, but are embodiments of a real
entity.  It is like rain water's journey to the sea after falling on
land.  There are a variety of ways for it to do so, but in each case
it is the rain traveling to the sea.
>
>> 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?

Yes, I am fine to bypass the Tao.  I am interested to read what you
have to say.  Maybe I'll learn something.

All the best,
Mark
>

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