[MD] The Dynamics of Value

[118]

Saludos Ham,
"Welcome back again, to the Show that never ends"

On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 11:08 AM, Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> Greetz and Howdy, Mark --
>

> Mark, in common parlance, the terms Excellence, Virtue, Goodness, Value, and
> Quality all presuppose a comparative reference.  In an all-good universe,
> goodness would be undetectable.  The same is true of an absolutely moral
> universe or a universe of the "highest Quality".   It is man who realizes
> Quality, and he defines it in a scale of "high" or "low" relative to his
> experience of a diversity of phenomena.  Quality cannot stand alone; its
> valuation (measurement) is possible only in a relational world where, as
> Pirsig says, "some things are better than others."  Hence, neither Quality
> nor Value alone logically qualifies as the Primary Source.  Also, just in
> case you're serious, Nothingness accounts for nothing.  You and I wouldn't
> be here if we depended on nothingness as the source of our existence.
>
[Mark]
Common parlance, you mean like jive? Wassup Homey?"  Common parlance
like "Double Negation of the Absolute Source"?

What I think you mean by an all good universe, is an undifferentiated
universe.  Since we operate by Yin Yang methods we created the term
"bad".  However, if all Being is Good, then we are simply discussing
levels of goodness.  It is these levels of goodness which is sensed.
Why?  Because of Quality.

Objects cannot stand alone, they must be differentiated through
Quality.  A relational world is the result of Quality.  Through the
principles of Quality we ascribe differences to things, and are able
to formulate choices based on this apparition of Quality.

[Ham]>
> You can point to that which supports your valuation of Quality, but not
> Quality itself.  Where is the Quality when you're not pointing?  Nowhere.
> What happens to Quality when there is nothing to point to, or when there is
> no one to point?  It disappears.  Quality exists only as a comparative
> evaluation by a sensible agent.  In short, it's a "comparative"
> interpretation of relational experience

[Mark]
On the contrary, I can point or sense Quality directly, that is what
we do.  Provide me a good apple and a bad apple and I will show you
quality without pointing.  I can show you Quality everywhere.  This is
a little different from the mysterious Absolute source, or the
unfathomable concept of negation.  There is not mysterious side to
Quality, it is all here, right now!  Quality cannot disappear.  Does
the world "disappear" when you close your eyes?  If you say yes, then
you have concepts that I cannot relate to.
>
[Mark before]
>> When getting to the root of awareness, I lack words, and yours
>> are as good as anything I can come up with.  I understand the
>> unique perspective of the individual, which may be denoted as
>> divorce from something.  However, this comes from treating the
>> world as made up of objects.  Either your awareness is
>> independent of everything else, or it IS everything else.
>
> Why is awareness an either/or proposition?  Obviously we are not--cannot
> be--the Primary Source.  But how about my awareness being dependent on a
> primary source to which I'm connected valuistically, everything else being
> my own value construct?  Is that concept too much of a stretch from Pirsig's
> DQ --> SQ patterns thesis?

[Mark]
You are right, I did not mean to create a choice there, my bad.  We
are the primary source, or at least part of it if you want to create
objects.  We are the big bang, we are infinity (or at least part of
it).  I am also connected to this overall source valuistically, it is
because I can discriminate Quality.  I do not see how we can create
our own value construct.  This is another area of your ontology I am
baffled by.  How does this creation happen?  What are the building
blocks, and how are they put together?
>
> You're saying that the experiential perception of a physical world is only a
> semiotic reality supported by language.  Does this mean that if we didn't
> communicate in word symbols, we would not perceive objects?

[Mark]
Yes, if you want to carry out this statement to possible meanings.  We
would not perceive objects in the way we do now.  We would not create
some kind of Aristotelian categorization, and false notion of sets.
Objects would simply be an extension of ourselves.  I have brought up
the thought experiment of somebody brought up by wolves to illustrate
this.  Without communication and another to do this with, we have no
sense of ourselves as distinct.  Everything would radiate from the
inside out, and there would be no mirror.  So, to answer your
question, Yes, absolutely.
>
>
> No contest here, Mark.  The image of the world "made by my brain" is indeed
> unique to me, as your worldview is unique to you.  That's what makes us all
> different.  Again, the cosmic order, relational aspects, dynamic principles,
> and space/time dimensions are valuistic attributes of the Primary Source
> which afford us universal correspondence.  In other words, we all experience
> and participate in the "same world" but in a different way.  This provides
> an "infinity of perspectives" at the outer periphery of an absolute (i.e.,
> undivided) source.  Does this not make sense to you?

[Mark]
Yes, that makes sense to me.
>
>
> I don't know about you, but my "objective world" is not something I learned
> in school.  Nor would it vanish if I never learned to read or speak.  The
> semiotic notion that we wouldn't exist in a common universe without language
> is as nonsensical as pure solipsism.  (And it has nothing to do with the MoQ
> vs. SOM worldview.)

[Mark]
I think you would be surprised if you meditated on this long enough
and thought it out.  At least that is what I did.  Without language we
would certainly have other ways to exist together, so I did not mean
to give you that impression.  Most of our interaction is without
language, probably through mechanisms that are still to be discovered
by the symbolic brain and therefore "known".
>
>
> When I say that existence is a "valuistic" system, I mean that it is
> constructed (actualized) from our primary value-sensibility.  We don't
> create the Value; we realize it psycho-emotionally.  Through experience we
> differentiate our perception of Value and bring it into existence as a
> relational order of beingness (things in time and space).

[Mark]
I am not quite sure how you are using the term actualized, but my
sentiment is similar to yours here.  Certainly the interaction of our
brain with the environment creates an interpretation.
>
> I don't use "create" because there is only one Creator, and we are not it.
> "Nothingize" was a made-up word in an attempt to convey to meaning of
> "negate" (which experience does).  I don't see how it is possible to
> "interpret" the existence of things by "separating" pure quality.  If the
> physical forms and parameters by which this separation occurs do not exist
> in quality, how to we get them?  If they are imbued in quality, then Quality
> (DQ) is not monolithic but differentiated (SQ) at all times.  And where do
> the attributes of objects that we ourselves differentiate come from?  The
> epistemology here simply doesn't add up.

[Mark]
I am not sure what "pure quality" is, unless it is everything.  You
remember as a child those pictures that would be invisible but come to
life when water was added, colors and all?  That is what Quality does.
 Quality provides the color and differentiation.  We see things due to
their qualitative aspects.  The difference between DQ and SQ is
presented for rhetorical purposes, don't be mislead to think they
really exist.  I will think of a few more analogies to help this add
up for you.
>

> Memory is part of my conscious awareness, so I rely on past images to
> recognize the quality and purpose of a motorcycle or any other object.  This
> recall and valuation is a function of my intellect, not quality.  Now, if
> Quality = Everything, and I and the motorcycle are simply patterns of
> quality, the only ontogeny needed is to explain the differentiation of a
> pattern.  But you've told me you don't subscribe to the pattern concept, so
> I see no foundation for the idea that Quality accounts for everything,
> patterned or not.

[Mark]
Yeah, I don't know about this ever changing pattern stuff.  Quality is
not like matter, where it comprises the building blocks or material
essence of things.  It is an active process, not a building process.
The exchange between you and the motorcycle is based on Quality.  It
is what is sensed, quality of sight, of touch, of sound, etc.  If you
view the world as simply differentiated objects, then Quality remains
hidden by your mode of perception.  Get out of the cave, dude.
>

> [Mark]:
>>
>> You are simply using the word definition instead of design to denote
>> the same thing.  That thing is predetermined outcome, or determinism.
>> But, unfolding reality is not a function of any definition or
>> prefabricated ends, it is a function of active free will.  In terms of
>> finite existents, I think this concept would fall apart upon Socratic
>> questioning.  Our imagination could be considered infinite (whatever
>> that means).
>
> To posit the unfolding cosmos as a function of my (or anybody else's) free
> will is carrying human arrogance to a new extreme, thus making gods of us
> all.  Surely you don't believe that we "will" the evolutionary order,
> eugenics, natural and physical laws, and dynamics of the universe -- or that
> we could even "imagine" such unknown complexity!

[Mark]
Please remember that I have stated that everything has free will, or
intent, everything.
>
>
> Mark, do you really think you are the Absolute Source, or that you can
> divide what is absolute into finite parts?  If you believe the primary
> source is nothingness, then there is no need to define it in terms of
> Quality and you can accept reality as you experience it.  After all, this is
> what Science does, and objective materialism is the prevailing worldview
> these days.  Again, I must return to my fallback position: Nothing comes
> from nothingness.  Quality is not a thing; it is a comparative valuation of
> things.  We do not create ourselves, and neither does Quality.  Things exist
> because we actualize them from differentiated value.  Value (Quality) does
> not arise from probability nor stand by itself.  It is that aspect of the
> essential Source which accounts for all being, actualized or "real".

[Mark]
Yes, Scientism has its problems when it is perceived as a reality
builder.  But even science is active Quality.  My question to you
concerning nothingness, is, where do our values come from?  What are
there predecessors, and building requirements?
>

> I'm not faltering, I'm just stymied by your resistance to common sense.

[Mark]
How about my uncommon sense?
>
Saludos,
Mark
>
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org/md/archives.html
>