[MD] The other side of Value

[Ham Priday]

Hey, Mark --

> As you know, I am in tune with free choice.  I would just not
> use it as an argument for creating morality.  Our choice is in which
> morality to follow.  In my sense of things, such morality already
> exists.  The code of behavior is a rationalization of what would be
> termed an irrational awareness of an existing thing.  I do not see
> the concept of imposition.  Since we are Quality, there is not
> higher authority that I can think of.  Perhaps this is a difference
> between my Quality and yours.
>
> Yes, Quality is a perfect entity, expressed perfectly in the moment.
> But I am fine with your otherness as well, since it can be reduced to
> the same thing.

Let's assume that your Quality is what I mean by Value.  (For that matter, 
it could be Goodness, Betterness, or Virtue.)

Have you ever heard the old adage "Opposites attract"?

For some time now, I've been trying to get across the point that we cannot 
BE Quality and at the same time EXPERIENCE Quality.  Experience is 
individually differential in that we always experience what is other to us. 
Thus, we don't experience our selves, per se; self-awareness is the 
pre-intellectual awareness that WE are the cognizant locus of an "otherness" 
reality, the "being" of which takes many forms.  Beingness also is 
differentiated by the properties of quality, quantity, and relation.  And 
(as I noted to Marsha) no single phenomenon or "thing" has these properties 
in the same combination as any other.

You yourself have observed that Difference is the sine qua non of existence. 
Yet, when you say "we are Quality" and "otherness can be reduced to the same 
thing", you equate the Quality, Value, or Virtue of otherness which attracts 
to the self that is attracted.  Since this is epistemologically impossible, 
I have posited value-sensibility (quality-sensibility?) as the 'negate' in 
the subject/object relationship, considering everything else as an 
"existent'.  While you challenge my negation theory to account for the 
emergence of the negate, I return your challenge by asking how Subject A can 
be attracted to Object A when both contingents are Quality.

> As you know, I have a hard time conceiving that we are separate
> from Nature.  I am not sure what part of us would be separated,
> except for the soul.  This I do believe to be true, but the sieve is
> our bodies which are part of nature.  Nature can of course be
> extended to include everything including the soul.  So, depending
> on the semantics, Nature, Quality, Essence, could all be one thing
> that is differentiated.  And, as you know, I do not see the need for
> "another side".

These thoughts also trouble me, Mark.  That's why I've defined the human 
individual as a "being-aware".  Inasmuch as the psyche or "soul" cannot be 
separated from its organic body, the individual is in effect a dichotomy of 
Awareness and Beingness.  This is consistent with the primary Self/Other 
dichotomy from which differentiated existence is actuated.

Most important for the Essentialist (and, I would hope, for the Qualityist) 
is that this dichotomy is not only accountable for the differentiation 
(i.e., contrariety) of experiential existence, but the affinity of its 
contingencies for each other.  For it is Value (the power of attraction) 
which holds Self and Other together.  And because Value is a sensible aspect 
of the Essential Source, it can never be lost in the metaphysical scheme of 
things.  That, my friend, is the need for the "other side" to Value.

> Would you say that existence is provided us by Essence?  Or are
> we at odds with such a thing?  This is all that I mean by provided us.
> That is, that it exists and we can take part in it.

That existence is provided (created) is part of the scheme.  I suspect you 
are "at odds" with this teleology, Mark; I have no reservation about it. 
Whether one holds to a Big Bang, multi-universe, or eternal universe theory, 
an uncreated source is essential.  I do not see Quality (Value) as an 'a 
priori' entity or force, insofar it can exist only by virtue of a sensible 
agent.  Neither Sensibility nor Value "exists" independently in Essence; 
rather, Essence is the absolute unity of these functions.

I sincerely hope you will find the means to "harmonize" with this concept, 
Mark.  You won't get it from the Pirsigians.

Thanks, as always, for your insightful inputs,
Ham