It was simplistic only to help make the point. And you seem to get it. A person without mental competence — for whatever cause: emotional trauma, physical damage, mental retardation, consentual immaturity, or what have you — is doing merely the best he can. Even the man in my example, if stricken with the flu, is not failing to get out of bed because he no longer values wealth, but merely because he is incapacitated. In the cases of the women you’ve posited, we presume that they are doing all they can to acquire what they value.
Now that we have the point, we can discard the words “want” and “desire”. It really isn’t a matter of what you want, but of what you value. They are not always the same. Consider the TV wisher we discussed. If he desires wealth, he doesn’t value it all. If he had it, he would likely squander it all away. Maybe he values being covetous. Who knows?
But my standard isn’t high at all. After all, in every case, I say that you will find that which you value. It isn’t upon me to decide that for you. I say the standard is whatever you set for yourself. I find enough about myself to keep busy. I don’t have time to judge others. We’re just talking hypotheticals here. If you asked me what does Czar value or what does Furt value, I have no idea.
How much are we like our gardens, and how much are our gardens like our selves?
An example from this thread.
Lib has planted his garden. He has landscaped it. He makes it into a thing of beauty, an attractive place. It has many gates, and the gates stand open. The very essence of it is an invitation to others to join him. He has a fountain that is a source of endless water, to share with all that thirst. The reflection of Liberal himself that he builds metaphors to be appreciated by others, and so, in part others seeking the garden are what he values.
Tris comes to the garden, enjoys it, and drinks a cup from the fountain. Then he travels out of the garden, into the woods. He makes no changes to the garden, or the woods, but just seeks others who might also travel there. It is a journey to nowhere, for the sole sake of who he might meet on the way. A reflection of Tris himself that he seeks others, and has no care for the places they might be.
You are your own garden. As you are like any other, so your garden is like theirs, as you are different from them, so differs your garden.
Tris
I have a metaphor here, and I’m not afraid to use it.
You’ve answered the first of my questions, but not the second: what if a person does not even know what they value? The tantruming child values independance: his being is consumed with the earnest wish to assert his autonomy. It’s not a pose or a facade, but a genuine emotion. It is only later that the child can reflect that he does not indeed value his independence that much, and that he also places equal or even greater value on the presence of his mother. In short, what he values changes.
As I understand it, you are positing that the seeking and the finding, in the real metaphysical sense takes place outside of time, in the eternal present. And yet it surely seems that at least some human beings do change, and what they value does change; how do you reconcile that?
In some cases it’s surely true that what they were seeking before was merely the illusion of what they really wanted … it just seems to be glib and dismissive to say that that must always be the case.
Like I said, I can’t make categorical statements about actual individuals and their moral journeys. A hypothetical is interesting, and I don’t mind answering it. But it seems vastly unfair then to say, “Aha! But how about if I tweak it slightly, or hypothesize something else? What then? Your statements are glib!” When I answer one hypothetical, I have no idea what exceptions, nuances, penumbras, and tangents you might have in mind. So I just answer as best I can with the information you give me.
I don’t even know what it means not to value anything at all. Most children I’ve known value love, which is quite possibly why Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like them.
Finally, I think that “eternal present” is an oxymoron, and I haven’t said anything at all about it. Eternity is not an unchanging time point (as opposed to a time-arrow). It is timeless.
Well, sure. But I don’t think “what about people who value different – and indeed contradictory – things at different times in their lives” is a trick question.
Neither do I.
Sure; but they also value other things, and at times they value then more. And the love-valuing child may turn into a power-valuing megalomaniac … which of those is the “real” person
But as I read you, you’re saying essentially that all people, at root, value one thing. And that’s what I’m having a hard time with.
Perhaps when Lib arrives in his garden, it will have strange and beautiful plants that he never imagined it to have. And staircases spiriling up into skies beyond count, that he never considered.
Perhaps Heaven itself won’t fit into our metaphors. Not unlikely, since we have been having a lot of trouble getting even each other into them.
All people, at root, value one thing? That’s not something that I think. If that’s the only thing you’re having a hard time with, then your hard time is over.
Have a seat in the garden if you have time. The daffodils are blooming.
Well, not quite. So what is the destiny of the person who either values multiple things at one time, or who values first one thing and then its opposite?
We’re just talking hypotheticals here. If you asked me what does Czar value or what does Furt value, I have no idea.
Neither do I.