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 Self-Valuing Ethics

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Fixed Cross
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PostSubject: Self-Valuing Ethics   Self-Valuing Ethics Icon_minitimeSun Jul 13, 2014 12:06 pm

I

I value myself, therefore I am.
I recognize other beings by their self-valuing
I encourage their attempts to do so to my benefit
I will fight their attempts to do so at my cost

This is how I set my values.


Last edited by Fixed Cross on Sun Jul 20, 2014 11:51 am; edited 3 times in total
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PostSubject: Re: Self-Valuing Ethics   Self-Valuing Ethics Icon_minitimeSun Jul 13, 2014 12:10 pm

II

Appreciation is the expression of superior standards
superior standards imply the presence of inferior standards
Man loves to behold the superior
Man loves to be aware of the existence of inferiority

Man loves difference, because he loves the feeling of power it gives him. Even in his conviction that all are equal, a man will seek to be different, to excel, and to come out over those that oppose his views.

Man is ready to accept his own possible inferiority for the existence of the possibility to be superior.
The American Dream reflects this, in the same vein as Roman Citizenship once did. "Accept you're an inferior, and you begin to climb the ladder to membership of the elite." All initiation process begin this way.

For all to be equal, there must be absence of hierarchy. This means the absence of lasting progress.

Axiomatic human equality precludes human improvement.

And yet, the American Dream consisted of that very Axiom. The key to this riddle is that the equality only pertained to those men who were given the legal right derived from that Axiom.

Legal Right is the ground of true, noble, standard-setting Equality.
To give each human the right to his own actions, this is to force each human to exist, in the sense of sentence 1 of this thread. It is to enforce him to be different.

The civic right to behave as equals: yes
The civic duty to treat as equals: no
The government right to behave as equals: no
The government duty to treat as equals: yes.

Government is the axiomatic opposite of citizen. Citizenship under opposing government means self-valuing under an opposing self-renouncing apparatus.
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PostSubject: Re: Self-Valuing Ethics   Self-Valuing Ethics Icon_minitimeSun Jul 13, 2014 12:27 pm

Fixed Cross wrote:
I value myself, therefore I am.
I recognize other beings by their self-valuing
I encourage their attempts to do so to my benefit
I will fight their attempts to do so at my cost

This is how I set my values.

First conclusion: To cause struggle, rather than to avoid it, belongs to the first set of axiomatically derived values.


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PostSubject: Re: Self-Valuing Ethics   Self-Valuing Ethics Icon_minitimeSun Jul 13, 2014 12:51 pm

Given its natural origins to I needed to ground this here, but posted working versions on KTS and H. I might bring it to ILP as well, or not. I will probably end up referring to it, but prefer to refer to KTS to keep polarizing, connecting to peoples pathos about (in)equality, forcing them to confront the issue by speaking to their instincts.

In any case, please feel free to add to this, and to call things into question. I wrote it in a quick impulse but I think it addresses the main issue that makes the ontology a fertile ground to a working, living ethics (see Pezers signature) - the dual expression of the philosopher: to value other self-valuings on the principle of their self-valuing, and the affirmation of the necessary differences that arise from this.

This is what Sloterdijk explains as the thymotic impulse of the subject, opposed to its erotic response to objects.  The latter results in ideas of equality, the former results in assertion of inequality, i.e. quality.
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PostSubject: Re: Self-Valuing Ethics   Self-Valuing Ethics Icon_minitimeSun Jul 13, 2014 7:55 pm

"Values did man only assign to things in order to maintain himself- he created only the significance of things, a human significance! Therefore, calleth he himself "man," that is, the valuator."
(Zarathustra, of the Thousand and One Goals)


Fundamental to mans consistent being-as-himself, is his activity of valuing in terms of himself. By this he assimilates material and grows as himself. How is a consistent valuing possible? The simple answer would be: by being a consistent subject. But this only create a a circular argument, and leaves open the question of how there can be a valuing, a being. How does a subject maintain its perspectival consistency, its structural integrity, whereby it values in terms of itself? To explain this we must posit a self-valuing, which is to say, a holding-oneself-as-value, whereby this “oneself” is nothing else than this consistent holding-as-value, in engaging the outer world. This consistency of a self-holding standard-value, is what amounts to being, the accumulation of more and more material to feed and sustain a structurally consistent growing, “a becoming”.

We are faced with the problem of identifying in technical, specific terms what this self-valuing is.  We may not be able to describe or define it in the terms we are used to, in which we like to acquire knowledge, the terms which are developed to describe the manifest in exact measurements. The collection of these terms and their proper logic, that of mathematics, is what we refer to as exact science.

Observing the manifest world in scientific terms, we use principles such as quantity, causality, energy-tranferring and interacting, motion, temporality. All these are enabled and interconnected by the laws of mathematics, which is the logic of objective equalies. It relies on given and exactly determined values, which can be defined in terms of each other. It is here that the philosophy of value ontology posits a break with the method of science. The philosopher is not satisfied with positing values as if they are unquestionably given, it is his task to investigate why, or more precisely, how they are given. Mathematics can not provide an answer to this, as such would go directly against the axioms of this science, which include always the word “if”. If "A" is given, then A is given as A. It does not posit that A is given - it is as if A can be anything - which is not the case. Possibilities are limited. Deepening of logical power occurs now that we have abstract terms for the possibility of existing.

The aim is to embed language into being, to absolve it of its abstracting, detaching compulsion. The means is to embed being into grammar.

The great philosophersof the modern age have attemped such positive statements in various ways, beginning with Descartes, who posited the certainty “I think therefore I am”, or, read properly in context, “I question that anything is, therefore I am”.  Nietzsche and others observed that this “I” who questions is not actually given as an exactly understandable unit. What is this “I” that is, and that questions that anything is, and that posits that he is because he questions that anything is? Descartes accomplished bringing himself the experiential certainty that there is such a thing as himself. He does not bring the certainty that anything else is, in fact he calls this somewhat into question, challenges the other to reveal itself at least to itself; he does not reveal what they are or why they can be said to exist; If the only ground for knowledge of what is is to cognate in the way Descartes was doing, then only thinkers can be known to exist, and only by themselves. Clearly this is not a useful definition of being. It is also not an exact application of logic, as it assumes the “I” both in "I think" and "I exist". The terms “I”, “exist” and “think” are not a mathematical terms: “I exist” can not mathematically be inferred from “I think”.

To draw certainty from Descartes logic, we must look at the meaning of the word “Am” in “I Am”. We must correctly observe the meaning of the verb “to be”.We must logically be satisfied with the given that what we call “being” by definition is in being (exists) - this is the only meaningful and correct way to employ the verb at all. The analytical certainty is “I am, therefore I am”. By this phrase, “I” is defined, namely, as that which, apparently, is said by itself to exist. What have we come to know by this? Nothing.

It is here that philosophy must break from science, from the pretense to be able to define the terms “I” and “exist” and “cognate” in terms of each other by exact inference. We must simply be honest, and admit that all three of these terms are simply understood by us, to mean precisely... what we understand by them! No further explication is necessary, no more exact explication is possible. The terms were called into being to describe exactly what we mean when we use the terms. They hold no deeper meaning than what they were invented to convey.

So to further philosophical understanding, that to which the terms “I” and “think” and “exist” were invented to convey must be explicated in more exacting terms. We can observe that these terms all three of them refer to the very same thing. “I”, “think” and “am” are all words indicating the same. This also includes the things to which other terms refer, such as “eat” or “walk”. As true as “I think, therefore I am” is, is also “I eat, therefore I am”. By disconnecting Descartes logic from his situation in which it emerged, we see that the “I” is posited as a condition of “think”, as much as “think” is a condition of “I”. Therefore, when I posit that “I eat”, I posit an “I” which, by common interpretation of grammar, means that I posit that (an) “I” exist(s).

We see that “I” simply means “existing” and that this existing can be expressed in the endless variety of verbs that may pertain to a posited I. That is all the I is; it allows a verb to make sense, to indicate an activity.

The I is thus always an activity.

In short, we relate activity to values, we act to express and obtain values, and these values allows us to continue acting. The values thus reflect a central value, the acting agent, the "I", who is by all acts bestowing value on himself and so creating his world, which is largely defined by the way he encounters it. If he encounters it consistently, he becomes master over it. If he encounters it according to the ways in which the world engages him, he becomes slave to it. In a normal being, there is a balance. Happiness in mastery increasing, unhappiness is responsiveness increasing. Depression is overloaded responsiveness. The only cure for depression is physical, physiological expression of anger and undergoing the consequences with a measure of of indifferent curiosity toward ones own psychology, so that one can begin discerning ones natural values and reject imposed, unnatural ones.

To exist, one must be able to value consistently, which means that the standard must be consistent. I act so to obtain a value, an object, a thing-and-goal. But if I do not structurally attain my goals, my self-valuing will suffer. So establishing the appropriate values is implicit in existing. Since all that I do is predicated and justified by a specific type of valuing, and since “I” can only be explicated in terms of what I do, the I is nothing besides this establishing-value-to-myself. This is what we seek to maintain or repair - the activity of structurally setting attainable values, the attainment of which will result in a capacity to attain higher values. This is how power increases, by structural value-setting. In man, this needs to be conscious, because those that do this consciously win, defeat others. Man is conscious being so his self-valuing needs to be conscious in order for his integrality, his structural integrity, his 'soul', to survive. His intellect needs consistency.

Ontologically, in all cases the value-establishing to the I leads to a continuation of its capacity to set values for itself, this type of valuing must be understood as a constant, a type of valuing that is itself a consistency, a standard of value -- which means that its consistency must be understood as an activity.

Consistency is the fundamental activity.

We can verify this in terms of the periodic table and at the same time we so verify the logic of this categorization that nature apparently produces on her own accord, by asking what makes for a consistency of an elements. We may consider the most consistent to be those which are least influenced by other elements or energies. The are the 'noble' elements. What make as an element noble is that it does not change internally in reaction to outward stimuli. It holds no potential for internal change, is never inconsistent with itself. It is universe enclosed in itself, all of its values are perfectly attainable, for ever.  Gold is this absolutely active; it holds in its structure the maximum amount activities, its many electron rings are filled, its inner tensions are all in play. Maximization of activity within a given structure amounts to a maximal consistency.

Contemplate the correspondence between consistency, activity, the noble elements, and value.







[Jan 2012]
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PostSubject: Re: Self-Valuing Ethics   Self-Valuing Ethics Icon_minitimeFri May 29, 2015 9:59 am

Fixed Cross wrote:
I

I value myself, therefore I am.
I recognize other beings by their self-valuing
This is how I set my values.

i can go along with the first two with a qualification. Can't we also recognize other beings despite their not valuing self?



Quote :
I encourage their attempts to do so to my benefit
I will fight their attempts to do so at my cost

I don't know, Fixed Cross. You may not mean it the way in which it sounds to me, but you seem to be saying that as long as you get something out of the way in which they self-value their self, you can go along with it but if it doesn't offer you anything in return, it's unacceptable to you - even if the way in which they are self-valuing is real and authentic.

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PostSubject: Re: Self-Valuing Ethics   Self-Valuing Ethics Icon_minitimeFri May 29, 2015 10:12 am

I think he means that if their self-valuing is harmful to himself then he will naturally resist and attempt to preserve his own self-valuing in the face of their threats to it. I don't think he is saying anything about opposing any self-valuing that has no benefit to him, that would be something else entirely.
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PostSubject: Re: Self-Valuing Ethics   Self-Valuing Ethics Icon_minitimeFri May 29, 2015 5:12 pm

Indeed, that would require that I value myself in terms of others failure, rather than of my own experience.

I would ask of anyone who thinks of my selfvaluing ethics ( double entendre intended) as cruel or bad to consider the organisms perishing daily to keep him/her alive.

I am not a cruel person, I do not like to hurt beings and I lie awake in agony often as I am overcome with images of the torture going on somewhere at that moment. This is a result of a very painfully acute honesty, which also forces ne to recognkze the truth anout values --- they will always contradict
That tension is more or less the fabric of the universe.

Many of my readers overlook that an ontology is not a reflection of free will or of desires; but of inevitabilities which are as often the cause of tragedy as they are of joy.

The art of life; as people such as Jesus teach, is to stay true to what one loves and to take the suffering that comes with that. This is the price of having values, of being -- it hurts, because the value of the fulfillment of this or that being is never a universal value.

To resist the pain of that struggle is, however, the universal marker of worth.
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PostSubject: Re: Self-Valuing Ethics   Self-Valuing Ethics Icon_minitimeSat May 30, 2015 2:21 pm

Fixed Cross

Quote :
Indeed, that would require that I value myself in terms of others failure, rather than of my own experience.
As for the latter, that is a beautiful thought. As for the former, there are many out there who do just that and where would the true value in that be? I wonder what we actually gain in seeking an advantage and in taking an unjust one? Certainly not ourselves.

Quote :
I would ask of anyone who thinks of my selfvaluing ethics ( double entendre intended) as cruel or bad to consider the organisms perishing daily to keep him/her alive.
I wasn't suggesting that. Language is not an easy thing to completely understand another's thoughts.
I've heard the "organisms perishing" argument. How would we solve that situation though - short of killing ourselves.
If we could consciously do something to allow those organisms to live, we would wouldn't we? And let's not forget either that these organisms do not have consciousness though their will to survive may be far greater than ours - look how long they've been around.

Quote :
I am not a cruel person, I do not like to hurt beings and .

I have never seen you as cruel. I may be more cruel than you in certain instances.

Quote :
I lie awake in agony often as I am overcome with images of the torture going on somewhere at that moment
I've been known to do that myself in certain degees. But really what purpose or function does that serve except to put us in hell bit by bit. We can't always embrace these things but we do have to realize realistically that they do exist and do whatever to help things along. There was a time that I was more that way. But at some point you come to realize that you can destroy yourself bit by bit in that way, die a little bit. Is that really necessary to try to change some things?

Quote :
This is a result of a very painfully acute honesty, which also forces ne to recognkze the truth anout values --- they will always contradict
That tension is more or less the fabric of the universe.

Why do they contradict do you think? Because we are human creatures with desires which need to be met - our creature natures conflict with our consciousness, with our consciences, which are part of our authentic selves, unless we're scrupulous that is . I think they can live in harmony together though. How do we do that?

Quote :
The art of life; as people such as Jesus teach, is to stay true to what one loves and to take the suffering that comes with that
.

But why must there be suffering with it? I'm not saying to avoid what suffering there is but how to change that suffering - to transform it into something more. Why does there have to be the suffering - is it only because we think it has to be there?

Quote :
This is the price of having values, of being -- it hurts, because the value of the fulfillment of this or that being is never a universal value.

But if we just ALLOW things - maybe understanding on another level, that this is just as it is, why would we have to have the pain and suffering? Why couldn't it just be transformed into joy - without lying to ourselves that is. Try to just begin to see things differently. That's not to say that at the same time we don't see things as they - and just to work toward changing that. We can allow at first or at the same time and move forward changing it. Maybe that didn't make any sense to you.

Quote :
To resist the pain of that struggle is, however, the universal marker of worth.

There is another way of looking at this, don't you think. To allow the pain of the struggle, to see it for what it is, and then to move forward I think is wiser.
The more I resist something, the more I find I am struggling with it. When I can relax and accept it, which for me, can be like climbing Mt. Everest, the easier it becomes. The struggle can be seen as nothing more than evolving graciously.
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PostSubject: Re: Self-Valuing Ethics   Self-Valuing Ethics Icon_minitimeSat May 30, 2015 2:25 pm

If we truly do see ourselves as valuing ourselves, why do we do things or think things to allow ourselves to suffer UNNECESSARILY?
There is true value in suffering but only if it serves a higher purpose than our suffering unncessarily.
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