[MD] Fw: The Dynamics of Value

[Ham Priday]

Hey Ham,

On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 1:45 AM, Mark ununoctiums at gmail.com wrote:

> [Ham, previously]:
>> If you've seen angels painting the world, surely it's an experience
>> we need to hear about. I haven't included any angels in my thesis.
>> What do they look like? What do they paint with?
>
> [Mark]
> Well, then you haven't been following my posts (can't blame you).
> They looked like angels and they painted with paintbrushes.  Do you
> think that people just made angels up?  Why would they do that?
> And no, don't give me some psychology mumbo jumbo, that would
> demean our interaction.  There was a time when I was heavily into
> synchronicity. I wrote about it in one of my posts.  The endeavor
> was to pay attention to everything that was happening and see my
> place, on a moment to moment basis.  Let me say, that although it
> was eye-opening, it is not a good place to exist, if one wants to
> survive.  During that period, I saw many things that I now know exist,
> I have chosen to shut them out, just for self preservation.  Nobody
> likes a schizophrenic...

I just went through a search of my e-mailbox since June 10, 2009, and could 
find no reference to angels, painting or otherwise.  What "magic substance" 
were you on at the time of this "synchronicity" experience?  Possobly you 
are referring to a dream or metaphor that escapes me.  In any case, you 
should be aware that verbal leg-pulling does not enhance your credibility 
with me.

> ...It seems to me that perhaps a primary reason that you
> subscribe to Absolute Essence, is that you cannot remember
> anything from before your birth, so you assume you were
> nothing.  This places memory in very high importance.
> It would also seem that you see this existence as finite and
> a one-off.  This is also based on your extrapolation of
> experience, and the disappearance and creation of people
> around you.  If nothing else a form of memory exists before
> and after us, which is part of us.  We now speak of genetic
> memory as if it were real.  I am sure this is not the only kind.
> But then, we don't know very much do we.  Let us just say
> that previous lifetimes of the "I" do exist.  There is no memory
> because that is a physical property, but the sense of "I" is the
> same, just in a different body.  Would that fit into your
> metaphysics, or is your metaphysics confined to existential
> existence?

I did not exist before birth, nor do I expect to exist in an afterlife.  But 
that isn't the reason I believe in Absolute Essence.  The 'essence' of my 
sensibility is Value which transcends existence -- mine or any one else's. 
If there is any future for this singular awareness of Ham, it is bound up in 
my "value-complement".  (I've touched on that concept in my online thesis.)

"Existential existence" is a redundancy.  Also, this Eastern notion of 
"reincarnated lifetimes" with no memory makes no sense to me.  Without 
memory every self ('I') is the same as every other self.  If, as you say, 
memory is a "physical property", putting me in another body would give me 
the memory of my new body, not the former one.  What, then, is there of "me" 
but a clear slate with which to experience a new life?  Again, each "self" 
identifies with the memory of its singular pass through existence, previous 
lifetimes notwithstanding.

> Again, I was just using your statement of what Other was,
> and you answer that.  I am not asking about Reality.  From
> my perspective, the actualization causes self and other, that
> actualization is called Quality because it creates qualitative
> differences between self and other.  I put the emphasis on
> the force which creates differences, you put the emphasis on
> a self which creates other.  I think this is just a matter of
> perspective, and that we agree fundamentally.

[Previously]:
>> ... Could you explain who the "us" is that enables us to
>> create our own reality?  Can you walk through walls,
>> or is that one of the parameters?  Where do the parameters
>> stop, what is the demarkation, is it in the synapses of the
>> brain? When does the free choice come in, in your opinion?
>> My schemes are indeed grand, perhaps I do not convey this,
>> but please do not lump me in with whomever.

A cognizant subject (self) interacts with objects and other selves.  The 
experienced form of these objects and selves is actualized by the observing 
subject.  We do not "walk through walls" or float through ceilings because 
the laws of nature provide  physical bodies a stable and consistent physical 
environment.  The human brain does not create the physical principles of 
existence; it only intellectualizes them.  I suggest that you consider the 
design of the cosmos a given, like the sum of 2+2.

Apart from the order of existence, everything else -- the forms, 
appearances, aesthetics, virtues, intelligence, symmetry, and meanings -- is 
a "value construct" of subjective sensibility.  I think it could be said 
that the Quality of our reality is the consequence of free choice.

> I think the problem is in what you think I think Quality is.  Yes,
> Quality is the fundamental source, it is what differentiates.
> From an analogy in physics, it could be called a Higgs Field.
> I will begin a post on that some time since people seem to get
> a lot from analogies from the metaphysics of physics.  By placing
> Quality as the primary source, there is no need to create
> something that we can never experience such as Absolute
> essence, everything is right here, nothing behind the veil.
> Seems a bit simpler to me.  So, when you say I have
> "adopted that concept", I am not sure what concept you are
> speaking of, since most in this forum do not seem to agree
> with me and continue to try to make a Western philosophy
> out of MoQ.
> [SNIP]
> I don't see how I can be in charge of creation.  Creation
> happens to me.  Free will comes from my intent. Again,
> I can point to the Avatar analogy.  If Quality is nihilistic,
> then so be it, but I see it as extremely uplifting.  I say Quality
> creates, you say you create.  Again, it is a difference in
> perspective, but the building blocks are the same.

The essence of existence is Value.  So, in that sense, our universe is a 
value "creation".  How we experience (i.e., "actualize") this creation is 
largely our own choice.  I must point out, however, that since Value 
[Quality] is not an existent but an attribute of the Absolute Source 
(essence), it cannot be nothingness.  That's where we disagree, Mark.

Essentially yours,
Ham