[MD] Fw: The Dynamics of Value

[Ham Priday]

Greetings John (Mark mentioned) --

Nice to have you join us.

[Ham, previously]:
 > 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.

[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.

[John]:
> I think it could be better said, that choice and quality are functions of
> each other.  For while I agree with Ham that the "Quality of our reality 
> is
> the consequence of free choice", I would also point out that the reality 
> of
> our self is a consequence of Quality.  In order for my self to be, there
> must be a valued distinction from other.  We've been over this before, but 
> I
> think it bears reformulation since it seems to keep cropping up again and
> again.  One idea your dialogue has inspired is this: that perhaps we feel 
> a
> psychological need to assert a dependency relation, (one thing coming
> before the other) in what is actually a co-dependency, *because*  of the
> nature of our own existence arising in a birth - a beginning.  We take our
> own reality then, and project it "out there".  We realize our own 
> beginning,
> and thus we postulate the cosmos beginning. I think Mark has been
> expressing skepticism about some definite cosmic beginning, and
> I agree with him.

I don't see how the self can be a consequence of Quality unless Quality is 
the primary source.  I've done my best to persuade Mark and others that 
Quality [Value] cannot by progenitive because it is dependent on 
realization.  The distinction between one self and another, like the 
distinction between different objects is 'nothingness', not Quality. 
Nothingness is the cosmic differentiator, and it is the product of man who 
is a negation of the essential Source.

Also, I can't imagine how the idea that we have a "psychological need" for 
dependency could have been "inspired" by my discussion with Mark.  In fact, 
man's desire for the value of Being is an expression of the exact opposite. 
We value otherness because we stand apart from it.  We do not want to be 
divided from that which represents permanence and stability.  As Sartre put 
it, "We want the being of the other for ourselves."  This wanting, this 
longing for the Essence from which we are estranged is our emotional sense 
of value.

However, I do agree (with both of you) that "cosmic beginning" is a 
cause-and-effect precept intellectualized from the facticity of birth and 
death and the temporal mode of experience.  This is why I generally use the 
verb "create" in the present tense.

Interesting points, John.  I'm pleased you appreciate the significance of 
this topic.

Essentially yours,
Ham