Chapter 1: Value and Metaphysics:
How Do We Know Something is Valuable
Having defined presuppositions I now will ask the reader to clear his/her mind. Information or knowledge they thought they had about “value”, “money”, “economics”, and finally a whole host of other ideas and concepts associated with them must be cleared away. The reader must prepare to view the world, reality and their place in it from a different paradigm… a different way of seeing entirely. I will propose a way of looking at reality, personal and otherwise, from a complete “ownership” paradigm.
Whether you believe in God or not, there can be no argument you have been gifted in this reality by something singular and unique. The ability to conceptualize, to organize, to shape and then realize in the physical world the concept, its organization and its final shape. The fact you can read these words at all is irrefutable proof of that ability. You have been gifted not only with life, but also with the capability to create from one thing in a given and defined state of being, something entirely different that was not there before. That ability is manifest in intellect, organized by design and expressed in will. Intellect conceptualizes; design plans the processes and will executes the relationship between intellect and design by reshaping reality in substantial formation of a newly created state of being. It is this basis upon which we exercise our sense of “value”.
But wait, you say… don’t we just reshape what is already there into forms and expressions that reflect our own values? To which I answer… you get it, you actually do get it. God Himself, should you subscribe to His being, does nothing more, nor less than that thing, shaping reality from what already is, Himself, into forms and expressions that reflect His own values. Now, I would say that is the divine spark that lies in all being with intellect and will. But, even if you don’t believe that there is an antecedent A Priori Absolute Being that does this, you cannot argue that the intellectual and willful being you do experience, yourself and those around you, do not do exactly this.
This is the essence of what being Human is about. It is the mechanism, as well as the process by which we come to know what is and is not valuable.
What is valuable therefore can be simply defined as this… whatever an intellect and will can use to design, shape, form and manipulate reality in such a way as that it reflects those qualities he or she finds meaningful. Value and our sense of Value, is as simple, and as complex, as that simple statement. There is nothing on this planet that has any value whatsoever to any other being but what that being finds has meaning for him or her self in it.
Now, all of this seems awfully self-centered and it is. But there is a simple reason for that. Before one can even begin to comprehend what is other than one’s own self, one must at least make a beginning at understanding that self and its own “values” and sense of “value”. Bertrand Russell once said, “…the unexamined life is not worth living…” which was, of course a statement of Mr. Russell’s own sense of value. One must examine the life from within which one lives to even begin to give it “worth” or “value”, and though there may not be many things upon which Mr. Russell and I agree, this particular statement is one of those upon which we do. It is too easy to go through life on a form of autopilot, letting the reflexes of the flesh and the nervous systems determine our daily course. Of course when we do that, at the end we usually find a great deal of time spent eating, sleeping, excreting and otherwise “functioning” but not having engaged much of what we like to call “quality living”.
When this happens to us, there is absolutely no one but ourselves to blame. We have chosen to value only those things that contribute to the eating, sleeping, excreting and otherwise “functioning” in the four dimensions of our reality. We have chosen not to place much value on those things which might lie outside those four dimensions and in a reality where a certain “quality’ of living can be achieved and maintained.
Now, I am not going to presume to tell anyone, especially these readers, where or in what they ought or ought not to place their sense of value. One of the qualities of a gift is that it is, in its nature ours to use as we please. It is here only my point to bring it to the attention of the reader that their relationship to their own sense of value determines, to a great degree, the events and processes of their lives that enhance, or inhibit how they attain to control of those processes of being that will aid them in creating and controlling their own sense of “value”. Everyone, and I mean this as simply as it can be understood; absolutely everyone has complete control over only one thing… his or her own being. That is the only state of being over which any individual has complete and total control.
But wait… there are all kinds of things that happen in my life over which I have no control. The weather, other people, the criminal around the corner from me, the government, the police, the guy who sues me… the list goes on and is endless. But remember one thing. These are all things that “happen” in your life, around your life, perhaps even through your life, but they are not “your life”. Your life is entirely conceptualized, designed and executed first by your parents, and then by you. How you do that, what processes you use, what events you control, and what events you yield control of to others, what value and meaning all of those events have in your “living design” are yours to use, discard, sustain or release. The point is that there is a simple and basic recognition that all of these things that “happen” around us, that “happen” to us, that “happen” because of us, are the bricks and mortar with which we build our “lives” and are not themselves our lives. If we are not pleased with the results of the building we have conceptualized, designed and executed then the solution is simple… either remodel it, or tear it down and start over.
Hey, that is a lot easier said than done! Of course it is. Saying it is just the first step in the creative process and the value process. To do it requires effort, intellectual, organizational or willful. There is hope for those who have a seeming deficit of any of these qualities. In creation, an abundance of one can compensate for a dearth of another. What a person may lack in intellect can be overcome with superior organizational skills, and one with poor organization can overcome it with superior intellect, or perhaps superior energy of will. And finally, ultimately the real meaning of any of them has to do with how the individual applies them to their own sense of value and how those values the individual cherishes can and are obtained. I will use one of the modern world’s most pervasive mythologies to exemplify my point.
The concept of “scarcity’ is a negative value of an entirely “materialistic” set of values. First, before anyone closes down, we are talking here in the abstract, there is a form of poverty about which we will talk later, that does not apply to this particular discussion, but this one must be addressed before we can even continue…
A purely materialistic set of values assumes the following about reality. What has been created in reality is all that will ever be created in reality and it is these building blocks out of which we reshape reality. As we continue to increase the numbers of those who place demands on this reality there will reach a point of “peak production” of any new or reshaped product that enhances “material” existence and therefore there will be increasing levels of competition for these resources and eventually they will run out and become “scarce”. The only “fair” way to deal with this dilemma is to find a “socially” acceptable method of distributing these resources so that they last as long as possible. To do or think otherwise is “irresponsible”, “selfish”, or worse “criminal theft” from everyone else.
Of course the other side of this proposition is that the only fair way to resolve this problem is to let those who must compete for these resources compete for them, those who can do the best job of using them and creating value with them will win that competition and the others, will ultimately fall by the wayside. To do or think otherwise is “false egalitarianism”, “collectivism”, or worse “communism” and the elevation of the “equality of misery” to a “value”.
The only problem with this way of thinking is we have to accept the underlying presupposition. What has been created is all that will ever be created and therefore will become increasingly scarce.
First, there is no evidence to any scientific certainty that this proposition is true. The observation is itself based on observation of a local neighborhood about which we have by far only incomprehensive knowledge. Since we cannot yet define how any, or all of it actually “came to be” other than through a description of quantum processes that break down at the border between being and nothingness, it hardly behooves any scientist to claim that they understand how “creation” occurred and therefore can unequivocally state the underlying proposition of “materialistic” thinking.
Secondly, the proposition is perceptually counter intuitive. Within our observable universe there are billions to the Nth power tons of material we have not even approached using to apply to creative processes. The assumption that they are soon to grow scarce is potentially true only in the immediate or local sense. Otherwise it is simply a matter of determining how to reach what we know is there.
We have already demonstrated we can place and maintain life in the voids that lie between the objects in our universe. In fact we have even begun to show that this void is nowhere near a “void” but is only a relative void in the same sense that a desert is only relatively “lifeless’. In short “materialistic” scarcity is a limitation we place on our own thinking and its limitations are limitations in our sense of “value”. By placing our value only in the material we limit our creative thinking to “material value”.
The “material” over which we are in immediate control therefore can be the only measure of our value. If we do not control a level of material such that we can provide a defined set of “living” values, such as a “roof”, “daily meals’, a “communications device” we are considered poor. A different set of living values and we are “working class”, another set and we are “middle class” and finally, another set and we are “rich”. These are all “material” based values and therefore have meaning only if one is a “materialist”. Accepting these definitions means that the individual accepts the underlying “materialist” presupposition and therefore limits their own sense of value to that presupposition.
The interesting thing about materialist thinking is that it underlies the political thinking of both the radical left, and the radical right as exemplified by Marxist Dialectical Materialism and Libertarian license. But that is a discussion for another time and place as well. Let us return to the question with which this chapter began…
How do we know something has value? The answer, in service to Zen principles, is its own question… does it have meaning to the individual? Does that meaning require that individual to “create” new value in order to obtain control of that other which has “meaning” to them? This is the importance of that object or state of being to that individual. To the extent this “meaning” is important to that individual, then that is the value of any given object, product or state of being. Value, therefore, rather than being some intrinsic and substantial “thing” contained in any single object or state of being, is actually a metaphysical quality of “meaning” and “importance” brought to the object, product or state of being by that intellect that values it. That is how we know something has value… simply because it means something to him who values it.
