"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]
Subject: Self-Valuing Ethics 
Sun Jul 13, 2014 12:06 pm
