[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[craigerb at comcast.net]

[Ham]

> If we and our objective world were not divided-- 

> if everything were one "aggregated mass"

.
I think it is best not to think of the Pirsig's quality
in this way. It is not in essence DIFFERENTIATED,
but it is DIFFERENTIATABLE. That is, there is not one unique
way of differentiating quality, but many mutually compatible ways
of doing so.



.
[Ham]

>You challenged the statement in my last post that "nothing comes into 

existence without a creator" on semantic grounds.

.
No, your statement is fine SEMANTICALLY. I fault it EPISTEMOLOGICALLY.
Like "Matter is neither created nor destroyed", it may be a good working
hypothesis, but not knowable.

.
[Ham] 
> As you accepted the premise that "nothing is created without a creator,"
> I assumed that "coming into existence" had some special meaning for you

.
I rather see it the other way--"creation" is a special case of "coming into
existence". A statue is created from bronze by an artist; bronze is created
from simpler elements by interactions; simple elements are created from
sub-atomic particles by other interactions; and so on. Could we know the
start [created by something from-something or not} for everything there is?

.
[Ham]
> Either you deny that all "value patterns" are relative (which I find hard to 
> believe), or you somehow identify the values I've enumerated [order, beauty,
> love, excellence, morality, joy, challenge, or inspiration] in the four 
> levels of the Quality hierarchy.

.
I don't see a problem here. A sunset & a proof can be beautiful. A crystal
& a society can have order.  
Craig