From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Tue Aug 31 2004 - 06:30:07 BST
Ham Priday to Arlo Bensinger
Sent: Monday, August 30, 2004 12:15 PM
Subject: Re: MD The individual in the MOQ
> Greetings Ham,
>
> > Man -- you and I individually, not as a group species -- is
> >the primary "dynamic agent" in the realization of Value through the
exercise
> >of personal freedom.
>
> Questions:
>
> Would a hypothetical "feral human" (raised by wolves, if you will)
> experience this Value in any way compatible or associative with an
> "individual" who partakes in a given social milieu?
Sensibility to Value, unlike empirical knowledge, is probably present to
some degree in all living creatures; but only man has the discriminative
capacity (and intellectual freedom) to choose those values which give
meaning to his life-experience. I have stated in my thesis that realization
of conditional (existential) value is not universal but is unique for each
individual and will vary in accordance with the individual's "personal
tastes and proclivities". These contingencies would of course include
influences from the "social milieu" in which the individual is raised; so
that in your hypothetical example one would expect to see less
discrimination in the feral human's choice of values and a less finely tuned
sense of value. Measured by objective testing, your "Wolfman's" rating for
cognitive intellegence would probably equate to his level of value
sensibility. But this is sheer speculation on my part. I would certainly
hope that Wolfman's values would be different from your own, if that's what
you're getting at.
> Do you feel different cultures extend different affordances to action (not
> just through prohibitive laws and socially-valued activity, but also by
> making certain symbolic relations salient? For example, a culture that has
> several words for "snow" versus one, a culture that recognizes the number
> "zero" versus one that does not.
I must confess that I'm not up on semiotics, and I really don't see their
relevance to this concept. As innuendos, linguistics and symbols play a
role in society and the media, I guess; so do sex and rap music. But how
does that relate to the sense of value? I don't recognize the term
"affordances" [nor does Webster's], so I'm not sure what you're asking. If
the question is whether freedom of choice is restricted by the traditions of
a specific culture, the answer is yes. However, except for the culture's
influence on values, intellectual freedom is not affected. I recall Pirsig
(who apparently likes to think of himself as an anthropologist) mentioning
that the Eskimo has 20 words for "snow" in order to demonstrate the
difference in values between cultures. The "zero vs. one" anecdote seems
more applicable to cognitive (quantitative) knowledge than to Value. Again,
values will differ from culture to culture as they differ between
individuals, and the native language tends to reflect such differences.
> > This core idea of Essentialism is missing in Pirsig's
> >MOQ, and extending Quality to absoluteness does not work as a teleology.
> >Since man is the subject of all experience, and cognizance of reality is
> >proprietary to the individual
>
> Would the individual be cognizant of reality in the absence of
> socially-constructed semiotic systems, or is it that partaking in
> socially-constructed semiotic systems allows the individual to create an
> internal, symbolic representation of "reality"?
>
> Which is pretty much a restatement of my first question.
Good! Because I've answered your first question in full and wouldn't even
attempt to decipher this one.
> >, this must be the starting point of any
> >philosophy.
> >
> >Hence, I must take issue with the MOQer's insistence in putting Quality
> >first. Neither Quality nor Value can exist without individual
sensibility,
> >and nothing exists without a Creator.
>
>
> Can individual sensibility exist with a social semiotic to define it?
Damned if I know. If you can come up with a semiotic definition for
sensibility, I'd love to see what it looks like.
Essentially (still),
Ham
>
>
>
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