[MD] Fw: The Dynamics of Value

[118]

Hi Ham,

Well, we are speaking past each other.  I do not think there is
resolution to whether we create quality, or sense it, using our
current discourse.  I am fine with that since in the end it still
places Value (Quality} in high standing either way.  I am simply
providing reasons why I believe we cannot create value, and are in its
presence.  I will reply to your comments below, but we can also move
on to other aspects of the dynamics.

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 2:24 PM, Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:
> 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.

[Mark]
Well, then my follow up question would be, if you lost half your
memory, would you only be half Ham?  What would the other half be?  In
my opinion there is something more fundamental that makes us feel our
presence as unique or conscious.  A whirlpool is the sum total of the
water which encompasses it, yet it is also something more.  It is that
something more that I am pointing to.  It would seem that for you, we
are the sum total of our physical presence and our memories.  This
would make us computers.  There is something more which I believe is
present.  This argument is no different from the ghost in the machine
argument.  That ghost is an apparition of Quality, whos aspect from a
human point of view can be analogized as Intent.
>

[Mark before]
>> 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.
>
[Ham]
> 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.

[Mark]
In my opinion we need a connection between the physical and the
spriritual.  Otherwise it is either all physical or all spiritual.  It
would seem you are arguing the materialist side of things.  I cannot
accept that based on the evidence presented to me.  Your sentence
which starts "We "know" Value.." is similar to my notion of being in
the presence of Value, not its creator.  We cannot create value.
>
[Mark before]
>> 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?

[Mark]
I would define it as that which feels or is aware of the memory.  The
underlying presense which places you in this world, the avatar if you
will.  You will still be that presence even if you were in a new
brain.  I will never know the true you, just your physical
incarnation.  The word "Namaste" means, the soul within in me salutes
the soul within you, that is a good example of what I am talking
about.  The real you could be anybody to me, I will never know the
true you that is looking through those eyes, or writing these posts.
Sorry, that is the best I can explain it for now.
>

[Mark before]
>> 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.
>
[Ham]
> Except that, as living beings, we are identified by our body and no other
> person has conscious possession of it.

[Mark]
Exactly, that is what I mean.
>>
> [Ham before]
>>>
>>> I think it could be said that the Quality of our reality
>>> is the consequence of our free choice.
>
> [Mark before]
>>
>> 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?

[Mark]
That is a good question, if one need choice to be introduced into the
equation.  Do we choose which body to have?  If not, then who chooses
it?  I do not think such a question is meaningful at this point.  I am
not aware of alien beings or computer software that is doing this to
us.  I suppose it is possible, but I remain ignorant of such a thing.
However, there is free will, beyond the mechanics.  It is more subtle
and hard to identify.  This is why I analogize it with Intent.  Intent
comes from the underlying "I", and we are born with it before memories
of this life begin to form.  It could also be analogized with Will,
but that is sometimes misleading.  I could go on about this, but I may
loose your interest.
>
[Mark before]
>> 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.
>
[Ham]
> 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.

[Mark]
Again, created for us implies some intellectual thing that is
creating, is a wave created for it?  Does it create itself?  I do not
find Quality to be intelligent in the human way.  When one experiences
trauma and behaves in a way that can be dominated by that trauma,
would you say that such behavior is created for us?  Or, is such
behavior a result of events?  Do we create such events, or are they
created for us?  If I sound like Marsha, then I can take that as a
compliment.  I could say that the self is not physical, and would not
be introducing anything new with that statement, since most people
believe that.  But, I know there is self, I am it.
>
> Let's not drop the Source, though, because it's essential to a valuistic
> ontology.

[Mark]
Yes, let's continue with Source.

>[Ham]
> 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?

[Mark]
You say this so firmly as if it were self evident.  We can measure
quality, just not create it.  I am not sure if I relate Quality to my
definition of Nothingness.  If I have in the past, then I have
progressed.  Morality is an apparition of Quality in its human form.
It exists on its own outside of that.  This is self-evident, and quite
obvious, just look at the facts that I have been presenting throughout
this discussion.
>
[Ham]
> 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."

[Mark]
I would qualify the statement above by adding "(for us)" after the
word value.  Yes, we can know value, but we do not generate it.  We
cannot create value, only perceive it.  I cannot see how such value
can be created by us.  Let me ask you, do you believe that memory or
feelings have a physical basis?  The current consensus among
neurobiologists is that they do.  So, let us say that a memory is the
strengthening of certain synapses and pathways in the brain.  Now, how
is it that we exert control over that strengthening?  Is there another
mechanism within our brains that directs what value we should feel?
If so, where is that part of the brain?  How is it that one day we
decide we are going to create some value?  Where does that come from,
how do we know how to do it?  It is impossible for us to create such a
thing, therefore it must already exist.  You are treating the self as
some kind of black box.  We know a little bit about what is in that
box now, we are not in the dark ages.  Such knowledge allows us to
delve deeper, and see where the sages of the past were able to go
intuitively.
>
[Ham]
> If you can't acknowledge the truth of that statement, we've reached a
> formidable impasse.

[Mark]
I did acknowledge it, just not in the same way that you did.
>
Best regards,
Mark
>
>
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