[MD] Free Will

[Ham Priday]

Dear Marsha--


> Greetings Ham,
>
> My difficulty accepting your "autonomy" is that in the state
> of awareness there is no 'I' or objects.  The self and other
> are patterns that are applied later.

Which is why I ignored your protracted discussion on "reification".  How can 
the self be patterned after its own awareness?  And what is the point of 
promoting existence as a 'smoke and mirrors' illusion?  It undermines the 
individual, the meaning of life, and the philosopher's efforts to posit a 
rational theory of ultimate reality.

Marsha, the world you and I live in IS "the state of awareness".  There is 
no existence without it.  I think Mr. Pirsig would agree with that 
postulate.  I don't want to be critical of anyone's personal beliefs, but I 
see no merit in advancing a worldview that there is nothing but reified 
"patterns of goodness or quality", that existence accounts for nothing, and 
that we are all caught up in a nihilistic dream that has no basis in 
reality.  Surely, this is not the philosophy that RMP had in mind.

It doesn't take a philosopher or a theologian to realize that "I am" is what 
makes existence factual.  When you deny the self, you are rejecting the 
agent of Value from which your reality is constructed.  (Try to imagine that 
reality in your absence.)   Philosophy starts with this self-evident premise 
and works toward a plausible conception of ultimate reality with the 
understading that nothing comes from nothingness.

Even you would have to concede that the world of appearances is not nothing, 
that even a phantasmagorical reality has an ultimate source.  And if the 
intelligent design of this universe is not worthy of metaphysical analysis, 
and your 'I' is no more than a dream pattern, why bother to explore 
philosophy?

Sorry to be so harsh, Marsha, but you appear to be stretching Qualityistic 
idealism to the point of absolute nihilism.  And that is a credo I cannot 
accept.

If I'm wrong, please restore my faith in your intellectual judgment.

Kindest regards,
Ham