[MD] Fw: The Dynamics of Value

[Ham Priday]

Hi Craig --


[Ham, previously]:
> ...Each "self" identifies with the memory of its singular pass
> through existence, previous lifetimes notwithstanding.

[Mark]:

> This would imply that we are our thoughts.  I can also appreciate
> that point of view.  Let me ask you a question.  If you were to lose
> all your memory and start over again.  Would the old you be dead?
> Or, would you still be here, just without a memory?

Self-awareness is primary to all experience, past or present.  It is known 
as the "soul" or "psyche" in the parlance of gnostics and cognitive 
scientists.  We are all self-aware first.  This awareness, this 
self-identified knower by whose experience existence is actualized, is the 
cogizant locus of its own reality.  All things
and events of the subject's awareness relate (are relative) to that locus 
and are proprietary to that self.

But, as I believe you pointed out recently, Self and Being "arise 
co-dependently", which means there is no self without a biological organism 
. So, to answer your specific question: if I were to lose all memory, the 
only remnant of my "old self" would be the neuro-kinetic responses of my 
body -- e.g., the ability to walk, integrate sensory data, and react to 
external stimuli -- none of which are functions of conscious awareness. 
Yes, I would then literally have to "start over again" as a new self-aware 
identity.

> It is possible to appreciate the notion that thoughts are what
> happens to us.  That is that we are present witnessing our
> thoughts.  I think that the "I" or the atman (or soul), is derived
> from intent.  It is our connection with Quality.  It is also
> Quality in itself.  But I may be stretching the definition for some.

You are stretching it for me, Mark. We don't need a "connection" to Quality 
[Value]; it is the very essence of our awareness.  Awareness = 
Value-sensibility.  It fills the gap of nothingness that separates us from 
the Absolute Source.  We "know" Value by our sensibility to it; but we are 
on the "receiving end" rather than the "generating end" of Value.  That's 
because the individuated self is a 'negate' of creation, not its essence.

> However, that is want I believe to be of the highest quality.
> Yes, by my logic, if you displaced somebody and took over
> their body, you would have that memory, but it would still be
> you having that memory.  It is what is behind that makes us
> unique.  The rest is mechanics.

How do you define "you" without memory?  Everything that identifies Mark --  
his life experience, his learning, his family and acquaintances, his 
talents, interests and proclivities -- are gone forever.  They belong to 
somebody else named Mark, not "you".  Who will be able to convince you that 
the personna of this Mark person and all of his attributes and experiences 
are really yours, but you've just forgotten them?

> There is no way to separate one's body from the rest of the
> world.  We are constantly exchanging the physical properties
> on a second to second basis.  Oxygen is part of our bodies
> for a short while then out of us.  There is no part of our
> physical attributes that we can definitely call our own.

Except that, as living beings, we are identified by our body and no other 
person has conscious possession of it.
>
[Ham]
>> I think it could be said that the Quality of our reality
>> is the consequence of our free choice.

[Mark]
> Yes, I would agree that it can be said to be a construct.
> But I would say that such a construct is created for us,
> not by us.  We cannot choose how our brain thinks, ...
> that is like a wave choosing which way to go.

Who chooses it, then?  Are you suggesting that someone else chooses our life 
goals and directs the course of our history?

> What we can choose, through free will, is our attitude towards
> such thought.  In this way certain thoughts can be removed.  We
> cannot create thoughts, since this would imply that there is a part
> of our brain that is the creator, and such a thing does not exist.
> It is all one big brain, there is no central control somewhere.
> It is possible to sit back and watch your brain think. This is
> meditation.

You are implying that not only our value constructs, but our THOUGHTS, are 
"created for us".  You're beginning to sound like Marsha who claims to have 
no self.  That's objective determinism to the nth degree!  I just can't buy 
it, Mark.  If we are not the masters of our own thought, there is no point 
to our existence.

> The word Nothingness denotes something, it is a proper noun.
> So, perhaps we should drop it, since it is misleading.  I do not think
> that Quality needs an absolute source to exist.  I believe it can
> exist on its own.  Perhaps that is where we disagree.  I prefer the
> simpler answer.

Let's not drop the Source, though, because it's essential to a valuistic 
ontology.

Quality [Value] existing on its own contradicts both epistemology and common 
sense.  Without the realization of a conscious agent there is no existential 
Value and nothing to measure Quality by.  You relate Quality [Value] to 
nothingness because it is not an existent.  But your feelings and awareness 
are not existents, either; yet you seem to believe they exist.  Do you, like 
Pirsig, believe that morality exists in the absence of a sensible agent? 
Or do you regard morality as nothinginess also?

These are fundamental postulates, Mark.  We can't be ambivalent about them 
and have a productive dialogue.  I subscribe to the assertions posted by the 
website master of the Philosophy of Individual Valuism.  (And he hasn't even 
mentioned an absolute source!):

"In order for something to have value, there must be a point of view to 
perceive it.
Knowing value requires a mind to think in the same way as knowing beauty 
requires eyes to see."

If you can't acknowledge the truth of that statement, we've reached a 
formidable impasse.

Cheers,
Ham