[MD] The other side of Value

[Ham Priday]

Hi again, Mark --


[Previously]:
>> 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.

On re-reading your analysis tonight, I got a strange feeling of deja vu, and 
I realize it's because someone whom we both know is pushing the same 
cosmology, albeit in different terms.  He calls it "perfecting the noumenal 
I am".  You call it "morality".  But the underlying concept is that Free 
Will is the ability of the conscious subject to choose one course of action 
from "all possible actions", the idea being that the "soul" is essentially 
the "infinite possibility" of choices.  I do not subscribe to that view for 
the following reasons..

1. Infinite possibility implies that the individual psyche or self is "one 
possible actualization" of the cosmic soul  [read: "collective 
consciousness"], thus nullifying the need for an Absolute Source.

2  As a moral concept, it means that Quality (Value) is not intrinsically 
"good" or "better" but a homologous aggregate that has no valuistic meaning 
until a choice is made.

3. Free choice is a matter of individual "preference" which is ruled out, 
since without valuistic motivation, decisions are reduced to random 
possibilities rather than value affirmation.

> In terms of your ontology, perhaps I could say that mini-Essence
> is experiencing absolute Essence.  That is, Essence creates a satellite
> to experience itself.  We have discussed this in the past, so I will
> not elaborate.  Marsha would point to the notion of co-arisings,
> which is equally oblique.

It's remarkable to what lengths a philosopher will go in order to refute 
absolutism.  Making "gods" of ourselves seems to be a favorite example. 
Positing the individual as "patterns of Quality" is an obvious variant of 
this approach, as is a mini-essent, Absolute-Essence paradigm.

By definition, human individuals cannot be "made of", "parts of", or "beings 
of" an Absolute Source.  The only logically acceptable relation of the 
differentiated agent to the undifferentiated Source is an absolute relation: 
that of a nothingness (negate) to Essence.  With Value as the common 
denominator between physical and metaphysical reality, the subjective agent 
affirms the Value of Essence by negating the otherness of its own being.

> Well this discussion certainly makes me think.  I find it most
> rewarding.  It is not a matter of Quality reigning over Essence, or
> the other way around.  Perhaps we could consider the two concepts
> as two sides of a coin.  We do not need to toss the coin, just hold it.
> I obviously have my own interpretation of Quality, and as such I am
> not against harmonizing.  If both are real, that is the only thing we
> can do.

It's not that one reigns over the other.  It's that all that we know of 
Essence is Value.  But you're right that the paradox can be likened to the 
two sides of a coin.  The sides (existence and metaphysical reality) are 
divided; the coin (Essence) is one.  As long as there are two sides, you are 
a winner however the coin lands.

I like the sound of your harmony,
Ham