Summary of value ontology

Value ontology is the interpretation of "being"/"the world" as composed of beings, subjects. It explains the structure of a subject as a mechanism whereby substance is assimilated in terms dictated by the nature of the subject. This assimilating is done by "valuing", that is, selecting. This selecting requires a standard, a ground value. This ground value is perpetually being set by and as a fundamental mechanism, that sustains itself by restricting its selection of its interactions with the outside to the type that sustains it.

Value ontology therefore refers to a logical circularity that is expressed in temporality as a circuitry tending to expand itself by integrating what it encounters while maintaining its integral structure.

The theory explains why what exists exists and persists through time, by making it evident that whatever does not have a "self-valuing" (such a mechanism by which a standard is maintained that serves to keep this mechanism operative) can not maintain structural integrity, i.e. can not persist.






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.







[Jakob Milikowski 2011/2012]

Quote :

...(such a mechanism by which a standard is maintained that serves to keep this mechanism operative) can not maintain structural integrity, i.e. can not persist.

I find attractive the machinic -- I want to say "metaphor," but that term doesn't quite apply so neatly here -- image you invoke with regard to the valuing-subject. The subject is in-the-world, of course, and what is the world but a matrix of flows, intensities, lines, forces? How perfect, then, the mechanical vernacular. In the midst of a web of intensities, placed between two or more flows, the machine functions to connect, to interrupt, to re-direct, to modify, modulate, in a word: to affect the flows that simultaneously serve as its life-force, its nutrition, and as its excrement, its waste. This affect, always in-the-midst-of, always between. This affect is, of course, valuation, the subject-machine's valuing-capacity, tendency, function. Defined in terms of its capacity to value, that machine incapable of doing so breaks down, its flows overrun it -- it is eaten up by the world, it disintegrates.

And here I can't help but quote Deleuze & Guattari, for their words currently haunt me: "Everywhere it is machines -- real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other machines, with all the necessary couplings and connections" (Anti-Oedipus, 1). This it is the world, the body of warring intensities and flows, a matrix of machinic chaos. Machines driving other machines: what a perfect image of the world as will-to-power (understood on the basis of self-will/value). The necessary couplings and connections are valuations. There can be no absence of valuation, for all life valuates -- where it is absent, there life is naught. Rather, only differing intensities, weaker and stronger capacities, active and reactive forces, noble and slavish wills. In supplementing "machine" for "subject," I believe the scope of value-ontology is significantly widened. Indeed, there has already been extensive work in this vein on this forum: society as valuing in terms of self, economy, politic, religion, and so on. Instead of using the subject that wills as a metaphor for what a thriving, flourishing empire does, I think a mechanistic, de-centered (de-subjected) vocabulary makes possible a more focused, less metaphoric, project. Note how Deleuze takes care to emphasize: real ones, not figurative ones, these machines. Not metaphor, but image. Not subject, but machine. The subject does of course come in to play along with consciousness, but such subjectivity is not a condition for the possibility of self-valuation; rather just the opposite. Which is to say that the self-valuing subject is not absolutely primary, it is not the most basic term of such a metaphysic, for not all valuation necessitates subjectivity. I propose, as a more foundational ontological unit, the machine. In any case, I put these thoughts forward with the hope that they will in turn spur more.[/quote]

without-music wrote:

Quote :

...(such a mechanism by which a standard is maintained that serves to keep this mechanism operative) can not maintain structural integrity, i.e. can not persist.

I find attractive the machinic -- I want to say "metaphor," but that term doesn't quite apply so neatly here -- image you invoke with regard to the valuing-subject. The subject is in-the-world, of course, and what is the world but a matrix of flows, intensities, lines, forces? How perfect, then, the mechanical vernacular. In the midst of a web of intensities, placed between two or more flows, the machine functions to connect, to interrupt, to re-direct, to modify, modulate, in a word: to affect the flows that simultaneously serve as its life-force, its nutrition, and as its excrement, its waste. This affect, always in-the-midst-of, always between. This affect is, of course, valuation, the subject-machine's valuing-capacity, tendency, function. Defined in terms of its capacity to value, that machine incapable of doing so breaks down, its flows overrun it -- it is eaten up by the world, it disintegrates.

And here I can't help but quote Deleuze & Guattari, for their words currently haunt me: "Everywhere it is machines -- real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other machines, with all the necessary couplings and connections" (Anti-Oedipus, 1). This it is the world, the body of warring intensities and flows, a matrix of machinic chaos. Machines driving other machines: what a perfect image of the world as will-to-power (understood on the basis of self-will/value). The necessary couplings and connections are valuations. There can be no absence of valuation, for all life valuates -- where it is absent, there life is naught. Rather, only differing intensities, weaker and stronger capacities, active and reactive forces, noble and slavish wills. In supplementing "machine" for "subject," I believe the scope of value-ontology is significantly widened. Indeed, there has already been extensive work in this vein on this forum: society as valuing in terms of self, economy, politic, religion, and so on. Instead of using the subject that wills as a metaphor for what a thriving, flourishing empire does, I think a mechanistic, de-centered (de-subjected) vocabulary makes possible a more focused, less metaphoric, project. Note how Deleuze takes care to emphasize: real ones, not figurative ones, these machines. Not metaphor, but image. Not subject, but machine. The subject does of course come in to play along with consciousness, but such subjectivity is not a condition for the possibility of self-valuation; rather just the opposite. Which is to say that the self-valuing subject is not absolutely primary, it is not the most basic term of such a metaphysic, for not all valuation necessitates subjectivity. I propose, as a more foundational ontological unit, the machine. In any case, I put these thoughts forward with the hope that they will in turn spur more.

I would agree that D&G use wonderful terminology here and this must become a part of the overall schema which we employ. The conceptual precision they bring to the table must serve as a model for us. The reason I use machinic language as a supplement -- and not a substitute -- for valuing/subject language is that the object-centered, non-teleological empiricist causality (however "transcendental") which "runs" D&G-like machines is in itself insufficient as an ontological or phenomenological principle. It tends to obfuscate certain essential elements, tends to enfame these within a confining and imposed model and possibility simply because of the nature of the language employed (it may cause "horizons to withdraw", albeit in a far "better" and more accurate/useful way than almost any other philosophical conceptual systems).

I also like valuing-subject oriented langauge because it is both precise but also imprecise, broad enough with respect to our connotations and habitually-used meanings that it can serve to identify a whole host of various sort of beings and possibilities, and it leaves the horizon wide open rather than closing it up within itself. Not that D&G overtly fall prey to such a closure, but the machinic language itself can tend to act as such a self-enclosing, an "enframing" system (to invoke Heidegger a bit here on technology, and of course language is a technology) that can co-opt possible meanings and contents before they find a chance to otherwise emerge more naturally, carefully and quietly, after-the-fact and without regard to prior mandates inherent to and often embedded invisibly and indivisibly within form/s-as-structure/structuring possibilities.

D&G's language in Capitalism and Schizophrenia is very useful and indeed has been a large inspiration for me. I view D&G's conceptual terminologies as models, languistic and highly useful tools to be employed, but tools ultimately subject in their usefulness and accuracy to an appeal to a broader, quieter and often as-of-yet imprecise/vague framework and possibility than these tools alone are able to capture. To approach this most sufficient frame and possibility of being we need to "impregnate" the machine with that "part" (necessity) of the machine which "speaks a different, non-object-oriented language", which escapes the confines of boundaries and possibility for delimitation under the current systems. We must have an account of a machine which allows for the je ne sais quoi of that machine itself. D&G make good efforts in this direction, but I also see value ontology as essential here. I see valuing/subject(-ive) language and appeal as setting object-ification within what is most necessary and sufficient for it, the valuing/s goings-on (however relatively centered or de-centered as the case may be) that give rise to objects (machines, images) and to object-relations (machinic processes and functions, flows/etc), that aim to identify and carefully trace the myriad intricate and often convoluted, barely articulable interpretations at the heart of all being/s. (In otherwords I do not think we need abandon the metaphor, not at all, indeed we need to rescue it, re-value it). I think value ontology, as a supplement to D&G-like machinic assemblages, helps to keep being open before itself and to ensure that what does arise does not do so prematurely, inadequately or as the result of prior unseen assumptions.

"To speak without speaking (falsely)"... such possibilities more afforded through the poetic or aesthetic experience become necessary methods if our ontological approach is to avoid falling prey to an objectivist-empiricist reduction. I worry that machinic language in itself or as a/the conceptual basis/ground flirts with this sort of reduction.

Indeed, the core of the self-valuing entity can only be described, objectified, as a machine. It does what it does because of an inevitability that we may deduce from being, our own being and whatever this implies.. We may deduce it from what we know, the full extent and depth of it. We can not indicate anything that exists without seeing how it must hold itself as a standard with the aid of what we perceive as some mysterious force or quality. Gravity, strong force, the facts of nature we can not penetrate into by isolating the things they pertain to from us, these are expressions of what we can understand when we take ourselves as a model for such machinery.

This is where the distinction between subject and machine dissolves. A subject is a machine. We are conscious, yes -- Parodites is making vast strides in describing what this particular form of self-valuing/machinery is, how it stands apart, what it produces, what we may attain with it, and what we may/can/must value in it., as ourselves. I have identified the other way end of the scale -- but the mechanism, the machine is still the same. We perish if we do not function as such a machine. Therefore, as vast and interesting and even crucial to know in order to aim for our ends the difference between the subject and the atomic machine is, they are still. under the definition of value ontology, identical at their basic machinery.

So, in line with what Capable says, We must affirm a more object-based descriptiveness within value ontology, and refer to what now stands in Production under "naive valuation" -- the concept of valency. This derivative of the concept "(to) value" stands precisely between the valuing "subject" (self-valuing/self-sustaining standard) and that what it values, "the world", the other, the object. It is in this medium of the universe, the true "ether", entirely a matter of possibility and correspondence,, where "all is properties and situations", that we may identify the machine-like infrastructure, the circuitry of the machine.

We can not penetrate deeper into the core of self-valuing than by knowing comprehensively our own self-valuing. This is the phenomenal/phenomenological task before us, and this is the perspective that I hold in regard to a new ethics. Very elementarily, we take our organism as the axiom from which to penetrate into the logic of the atom. In this, the subjective, including what we refer to as consciousness, stands logically prior to the things from which it is seen/interpreted to emerge/be constructed. So the study of phenomenology and ontology now must be a study of psychology, but not the categorizing kind, rather a new direction (of which the 21st century has seen preludes) -- something we may call experientology. The categorizing not of "effect" of "substances" but of modes of being, as recognized and categorized by beings as resulting from a certain "brew of passions" which is enabled by a certain valency-structure. This is and has always been the study of economics and politics, the true social sciences, working mass-psychology. We have just found its proper terminology, the scientific language for the subjective -- the means to objectify subjects into machines without devaluating them.

There remains the fundamental difference between a machinic object (a car, etc) and a machinic subject (a self-valuing). We may however understand now why we create machines around us, and why they so easily fit our valuing system. Our cosmos is host to and product of a machinal structure. At the core of all machinery is (identified from a human perspective) this machinal inevitability that is also at the ground of evolution - a mechanism that only in retrospect appears as logic. From its own perspective this mechanism can not be exhaustively conceptualized, but we must, as Capable notes leave room for the undefined of the machine, that makes it so distant from an automobile which only functions by knowing exactly what it does -- the quality of the machine that makes it not a tool, but a tool-wielding, interpreting all machines as its own functions. We can only approach and delineate this. What we can define is that which approaches and delineates it -- valency.

In order to articulate the categorical science of valencies, our area for objectification, it is useful and necessary to understand the subject and its non-conscious counterparts in terms of the machinal. But at the same time we have an overlap, a twilight zone between the visible / technical and that 'je ne sais quoi', the area where valency becomes value, where our approach is suddenly reversed mid-course without changing direction of its course inward -- the realest and most bewildering revaluation of values -- the moment where the machinal, first approached as the most precise, as we touch on its core appears entirely imprecise. This is the moment where "the severest self-legislation" is required, which means not only to set laws for oneself, but to set oneself as a law. Science has not been supported by ego's strong enough to attempt this - it has so far been the domain of the Camelof Zarathustra's metamorphoses of the spirit.

With the introduction of value ontology into science, there is an "I will" required. Science must deliberately impose itself on its subject matter, in order that its subject matter does not impose itself any further on him. The "I am" of science is still very far away, we stand at the beginning of penetrating into the machinal, the "machinery of the universe", by introducing ourself into its vital functions.

For this to become viable, tenable, this "self" has to be elaborated and even 'celebrated' like never before. The perspective, for every ontic machine is a perspective, every perspective is a machine, must be the new 'atom' of a new science. This will require an entirely new scientific caste -- to which end we can only begin to inspire new students, seedling-thinkers. To this end the language of the machinal could be employed effectively -- to draw out, "lure" rigorous, scientific minds into a realm of self-knowing by allowing the notion of self-valuing to express itself in the language of the machinal. We should appeal to the hardest, toughest and proudest with our project, for it carries the potency to bend the strongest steel, to shape everything around its dynamic core.

To make circles out of straight lines. value ontology does for logic what the notion that the Earth is spherical did for mans awareness of himself in relation to the cosmos. It places the limits of the subject (of logic) within itself, and describes the mechanism/cosmos wherein it exists in terms of the consequences of this centering. So as "gravity" first became the core from which effective physics emerged, so "valuing" becomes the core from which an effective thinking can emerge.

Fixed Cross wrote:

Value ontology therefore refers to a logical circularity that is expressed in temporality as a circuitry tending to expand itself by integrating what it encounters while maintaining its integral structure.

"[This] is not what is produced but what is original, and it is produced only because it is. It is therefore already in every thing which is. The power which flows forth in the mass of nature is essentially the same as that represented in the mental world, except that in the former it has to combat the preponderance of the real, as in the latter the preponderance of the ideal. But even this antithesis, which is not an antithesis according to its essence but according to mere potency, appears as antithesis only to him who is outside the indifference and glimpses the absolute identity itself not as the original one."

- Schelling

Quote :

[Self-valuing] explains why what exists exists and persists through time,

And the principle itself can be seen as underlying the mechanism of time.

"Value ontology is, obviously, an ontology–that is, it claims knowledge of Being in some way. The knowledge it claims is that beings are self-valuings. This is to say that every being is a self-valuing. But it does not mean that every being values itself as a self-valuing. Only those who accept value ontology can value themselves as self-valuings, as opposed to simply as selves. For those who accept it, however, valuing themselves means valuing themselves as self-valuing-valuings…

One may distinguish between four basic levels of self-valuing.
1. Most of existence consists of self-valuings who, however, have no knowledge whatsoever of themselves. That is, they value all things in their grasp in terms of themselves, but that is all they do. They have no notion of themselves.
2. Some of existence consists of self-valuings who do have a notion of themselves. These are what may be called animate beings or the “souled”.
3. Among the latter, there are those who, at least in theory, can know themselves and thereby the whole of which they are parts. These are usually called human beings. (Note that a human being in this sense need in theory not be a member of the species homo sapiens sapiens.)
4. Among the latter, there are those who actually knows themselves (or at least can know themselves in practice). These are the ones who know that all beings are self-valuings.

If the self one values is a self-valuing, then one’s self-valuing is self-valuing-valuing; and as all selves are self-valuings, all beings are self-valuing-valuings. But in most beings this is unconscious. That is, most beings are unaware of just how alike they are to others. The vehemence of the adversity springing from this ignorance may even be proportionate to how close one is to enlightenment in this regard! Is there greater adversity than among so-called “human” beings, whether they have different skin colours or be fans of different football clubs or belong to different sects? And in fact, they are not wrong, as far as their self-knowledge is concerned; they cannot value the other, because he does not match what they hold to be their defining characteristics (note how football fanatics tend to be much less intolerant, in fact often do not even notice, those who do not care about football at all). An enlightened football fan would be one who realised that fans of the rival club love the same sport, and that that love is what makes one a football fan. Well then! An enlightened self-valuing is one who realises that all other beings value the same thing, namely self-valuing! This however means that the peak of self-valuing is to value all beings, to value the whole, to value Being itself. Nay more, it means that this is what all self-valuing is. But there is conscious and unconscious self-valuing. An enlightened self-valuing would value enlightened self-valuing the most, would value self-valuing more the more conscious it is. And this leads naturally to the preference of the souled above the soulless, the human above the non-human, the enlightened above the unenlightened. It leads naturally to a politics of soulfulness, of humanity, of enlightenment."





Sauwelios
Humanarchy

The soul and its excess, Ouroboros in/against time rather than above it.

this is selfvaluing and the pathos of distance it creates
the tangents of its dunamis hook into those of others, and thus we get friction called society.

Law and crime, status and disgrace, growth and error - the seams of the flower mark these... judgments.

Dualities and making judgements (prejudging) are concepts I speak to often on the Taoist forum.

I am curious, Sisyphus, would you say a Taoist judges judging?

Ive often heard it say that one shouldn't judge, for judgment is divisive and imperfect. But this is a judgment. A judgment on judgment.
It raises the conundrum to the second power.
Someone judges, then judges himself for having judged.

My judgment is that judging is what keeps us alive. Our joy is in refining our judgments and in strengthening our responses that follow from them.

"And the good saw that it was good" - "And the good saw that its seeing was the good" - circular judgments of positive existence, which is positive existence itself.

To cease judging means to dissolve. Many Buddhists aim for this. But to wholeheartedly judge all contradicting states and also their states of contradiction as good, is to fully self-encompass, to value all of which one can potentially be aware, that is enlightenment. From it issues forth a love that is infinite. In that state, no self-sustaining creature, nor any mineral, can escape ones ardent love. One sees the elementary love that brings forth such being, and all else pales in that light. "Compassion" is this - a love almost too strong to endure for the courage one sees in every single effort to live independently, i.e. to give freely of oneself in order to make a path.

Infinitude of possibility brought forth love as the most comprehensive resolution of that possibility. All else is just reference to these two, lesser forms of truth, partiality against partiality, paradoxically, partiality against being itself, and thus against 'the whole' - might it choose to exist.

The whole can not be loved as a whole. Being is loved in recognizing detail and nuance, in its 'work' - this is how a woman wants to be complimented as well, and how children must be raised - you don't address the "I" of the child, you address its actions, which represent his far deeper identity, his world-shaping selfvaluing rather than his panicky survival circuit.

Apparently small children can't conceive of "I" - this is taught. Selfvaluing is always a "we".

Note that I added the word prejudging in my above post. This is a rather difficult subject in Taoism and I enjoy getting involved in all the discussions concerning it.

Yes, we all judge. Agree, it is what helps keep us alive. What I always key in on is the prejudging. And I don't care too much about the need to "right" and thereby judge the other person "wrong".

It is said that the Sage acts spontaneously. There is no conscious judging involved. A situation presents itself, the situation is dealt with, and then let go of. That is all. Was he right or wrong in his actions? He doesn't worry himself with such matters.

Prejudging is what we should avoid. Making generalized statements is another. And, of course, dualities as much as possible (good/bad, beautiful/ugly, etc). To avoid this as much as possible I opted for useful/useless (to me). This way I can determine something useless to me but it may well be the exact thing someone else was in need of. This isn't judging the item but rather judging my needs (wants, desires, etc).

In Chuang Tzu's stories we see judgements all over the place. We can even see them in Lao Tzu. But both avoid prejudgements in the most part even though some arguments could bee made.

There is nothing wrong with judging that a meal does not have enough salt or that this woman who is making up to us doesn't turn us on.

Sisyphus wrote:

Prejudging is what we should avoid. Making generalized statements is another. And, of course, dualities as much as possible (good/bad, beautiful/ugly, etc). To avoid this as much as possible I opted for useful/useless (to me). This way I can determine something useless to me but it may well be the exact thing someone else was in need of. This isn't judging the item but rather judging my needs (wants, desires, etc).

Nice wording but does it ring true?  Prejudging a new object/subject, prejudging potential, prejudging the old object/subject unawares of new aspects/growth?  Prejudging as in no prior experience with?

A sage lives in the moment and performs accurately?  What is a sage?

I do what Fixed is asking all the time, I judge my judging, but a sage doesn't need to? I'm not buying that.

There's much romance in Taoism or your version of it. Growing sleepy. Until tomorrow.

"Things are not the way they are, they are the way we are."
(Talmudic saying)

This is in accordance with Sysiphus' policy of not judging what a thing, person, or situation is, but what it's value is to him. The wise one judges himself: he establishes whether he has any use for the appearing thing, or not. I find this wise and inscrutable.


My path consists much of such practice, I practice it wherever no red lines are crossed. But the way I am and love myself, I have plenty of red lines. When someone crosses that line, I judge that not only have I no use for that persons actions, but I consider that person to be an ill in the state he is in. In the same way as I judge a disease not only in terms of not requiring it, but with a bit more aggression, so I judge sick individuals, those whose actions have spoken loudly enough for me to know what to expect.

Once I judge another, I no longer judge myself. I know I cant afford to do both. Once I have judged myself as having less than no use for a persons insistent violations of my values (what it comes down to), I will shift my judgment to that person, and set myself to destroy his capacity to influence me or my environment. I take immense joy in this, as I know that once I have come to such a resolution and resolve, I am fighting not only for myself but for my entire world. The world I want to live in, and that wants me to live in it: once my red line is crossed, I know I have my whole 'nation' behind me. Even though my 'nation' is still small, it's hard as diamond at its core and it will vanquish more than anyone here imagines, myself included. (I dont tend to imagine into the future, I just build on principle and sometimes receive visions based on observing history and current narratives)

This is a consequence of knowing valuing to be primacy. It allows for the spontaneity of judgment Sisyphus describes, but commits to judgment beyond a certain threshold, and from there on it becomes a straight line. Very much like the picture I posted.

A form of pain is a result of this, the social friction that Taoists generally want to avoid, this is the pot I like to stir... the world is my soup, my cauldron, as I stand over it with a rod....


Whereas only judging oneself in terms of 'do I value this/that' is perfectly healthy, judging ones own judgments is a disease. It is what westerners have been taught to do, and get cancer because of it. Judging is being itself, and to be structurally mistrustful of it, is to ruin ones mind and body.

Judge as you judge, but realize it is a judgment of your own situation.

I edited out a bunch of personal info here, its not the thread for it.
Still I'll leave this remark standing:

Only my lovers know me. That is axiomatic, by the way: only love can know. Hence, no knowledge is objective - "objectivity" is the possibility of love, of deciphering a moment into pure being.

Once you've known unfragmented love, pure positive judgment, you know death is of no concern. Whatever really matters is beyond the strain of moment upon moment - it pervades the ground of everything, and is always the final consequence. Nihilism is little else than impotence before such love.

Hi-D wrote:

There's much romance in Taoism or your version of it.  Growing sleepy. Until tomorrow.

So I put you right to sleep, did I?

Fixed Cross wrote:

My path consists much of such practice, I practice it wherever no red lines are crossed.

Yes, the red lines, the limits we have established for our interaction with the universe. These limits dictate how and when we must judge. This actually goes beyond my useful/useless concept.

Actually, I think it is fair to state that if we do not have established limits (red lines) we do not have a functional life philosophy.

Fixed Cross wrote:

Once you've known unfragmented love, pure positive judgment, you know death is of no concern. Whatever really matters is beyond the strain of moment upon moment - it pervades the ground of everything, and is always the final consequence. Nihilism is little else than impotence before such love.

That is pretty profound. Maybe you could consider working it up a bit more, say like a little article?

Fixed is a beautiful writer when invested and his insights pull you in to his gold mind. You must pen many books that mix renaissance poetry (Moby Dick keeps popping into my head for some reason?<---Not renaissance, but powerful writing I guess. I've never read Moby Dick.) with modern tensions. You mix potent imagery with your love of words and what exists is glorious. I'm a bit of a fan.

I'm confused by this endeavor of judging value as useful or useless against my needs. If my needs are unchanging as well as an unchanging object/subject, then it would make more sense with regards to a permanent judgement otherwise I just can't grasp how to judge on the fly without really understanding what I'm judging. Further more, what about timing is everything and not being a shortsighted fool?

Hi-D wrote:

I'm confused by this endeavor of judging value as useful or useless against my needs.  If my needs are unchanging as well as an unchanging object/subject, then it would make more sense with regards to a permanent judgement otherwise I just can't grasp how to judge on the fly without really understanding what I'm judging.  Further more, what about timing is everything and not being a shortsighted fool?

Nice comments about Fixed's writing.


But, to judging/valuing:

From my perspective, not speaking for Fixed,

Our values change through life until the time we have attained inner peace and contentment. That is, we place importance on our external environment and do our best to attain that state of being satisfied. We must judge in order for this to happen.

Over time we begin to hold values that are important to us only. Nothing to do with our external world. We have judged these values as being useful for us toward our attaining inner peace and contentment. Those things that do not add to, or even distract from our inner essence we judge as being useless.

Fixed has a different way of saying this and that's good. His learning experiences are surely very different from mine.

Challenges to our peace cannot lead to unexpected growth?

Hi-D wrote:

Challenges to our peace cannot lead to unexpected growth?  

Of course they can. Thing is, if the challenges have upset our inner peace then our peace wasn't as secure as we thought it was and tht means we have more work to do.

And remember, I am speaking to only our inner peace. Our peace with our externals are always being challenged. That is part of the dynamics of life.

I don't see how those modes operate independently, the internal and the external. If the internal is not affected by the

external are you living life to the fullest? Also by unexpected growth I meant our own as well as anothers, simultaneous

occurrence. By inner peace, you mean the perfection of love and joy mixed? I've only felt this three times for a period long

enough to realize what it was. It is the absence of fear and the acceptance and harmony with existence, which leaves you

with simply peace. Others were not in my company during those experiences.

Hi-D wrote:

I don't see how those modes operate independently, the internal and the external.  If the internal is not affected by the
external are you living life to the fullest?  Also by unexpected growth I meant our own as well as anothers, simultaneous
occurrence.  By inner peace, you mean the perfection of love and joy mixed?  I've only felt this three times for a period long
enough to realize what it was.  It is the absence of fear and the acceptance and harmony with existence, which leaves you
with simply peace.  Others were not in my company during those experiences.

Yes, we are talking about the same thing.

Internal: I have everything I "need" and I'm not having any internal conflicts (I'm not arguing with or disappointed with my mental condition).

External: This easy hair is broken and I need a new one. or My friend really pisses me off sometimes.


No, they don't operate independently but I think that the two operate from different levels. The internals are based in our needs and the externals are based in our wants and desires. If we can keep our needs separated from our wants and desires I think we would have a better chance of attaining inner peace and contentment.

I don't talk about love too much. To many attachments to the word. Joy, I would equate with contentment. Love, I would likely equate with peace, or perhaps no negative emotions; perhaps even emotionless - just being.

Yes, I'm sure many of us have the experience you spoke of but we fail to recognize the significance f it and more important, the conditions that led to that state. (What conditions caused us to be in that state of "just being"?