[MD] Is Quality a Value?

[Platt Holden]

Hi Ham, 

> First off, let me apologize for attributing your statement to Arlo.  I
> couldn't locate  the original post and got confused in distinguishing the
> ">" from the and  ">>" references.  (It it's any consolation, I've been
> known to do this with other people.)

Didn't bother me. It was Arlo I was concerned about. :-) 

> > Since "immanent" means "within all things," your question
> > "for whom" seems irrelevant.
> 
> That's strange.  My dictionaries define "immanent" as "inherent, existing
> in consciousness or the mind and not in an extra-mental world"; also,
> "innate" or "intrinsic", inferring what is immediate to the senses.  This
> is the meaning I have always understood "immanent" and "immanency" to
> suggest. And, whatever your dictionary says, it is extremely important that
> you understand that it is this kind of immediate accessibility which I
> attribute to Value.

My dictionary defines "immanent" as:"remaining or operating within a 
domain of reality." I also say value is immediately accessible. In fact, I 
say value is always immediately accessible because it is experience 
itself.

> > Furthermore, Quality-Value-Morality -- all mean the same in
> > Pirsig's metaphysics. He has freed morality from the bonds of applying it
> > to human behavior alone by extending it to explain the behavior of
> > everything, right down to quantum particles.
> 
> A behavior can have morality only as a judgment of man.  (We've been down
> this road before, Platt.)

Yes, I know. But I don't know why you insist on this. My cat knows that 
some things are better than others, exhibiting choices every minute when 
he's not sleeping, which is most of the time..

> Only an entity endowed with conscious
> self-determination can be considered moral or immoral.  Is a bolt of
> lightening  immoral for electrocuting a dog?

>From the dog's viewpoint, it's definitely immoral to be struck by 
lightening.

> Is a dog immoral for biting
> the postman? 

>From the postman's point of view, it's definitely immoral to be bitten by 
a dog. In fact, he can sue the owner. 

> The first is an inanimate act of nature; the second is what
> we call "bad behavior" on the part of the dog.  But neither act can be
> called "immoral" because it was not the result of a freely-determined
> conscious decision.

Your limiting of morality to human behavior is the problem. If you could 
see your way out of that box, your understanding of reality would expand 
considerably.

Sometime during our conversations I wish you would explain how you believe 
your moral standards came to pass. If they are strictly a product of man, 
then anything goes.

> Nor can an inert object be understood to express
> "preference" in any way other than euphemistically.  Whatever meaning a
> fiction writer may choose to impart to his words, they cannot change
> reality.  "Preference" does not exist where there is no conscious choice. 
> This is not some ingenious new epistemology that Pirsig has dreamed up --
> it's verbal sleight-of-hand to make us think so.

Even an amoeba knows "It's better here." So there's nothing new in 
Pirsig's epistemology. 

> Platt, I don't think it's crazy to recognize that existents in our universe
> move in a course directed by their CREATOR.  What is "nuts" is to regard
> this teleology as self-motivation, choice, preference or morality on the
> part of insentient objects.  I dislike being so blunt, but it should be
> obvious that the MoQ's author chose to win over the atheists by rejecting a
> transcendent source.  In the absence of a supernatural designer, the only
> way he could account for the existence of consciousness, volition, and
> moral understanding was to impart these attributes to THINGS and the
> UNIVERSE ITSELF.

No. He doesn't reject a transcendent force. It is Quality--the force of 
goodness.  

> I ask you: which is "more nuts"... to assert that God creates the world?
> ... or, to assert that things create themselves?

Darwinian theory asserts things create themselves. The MOQ rejects the God 
of religion, but posits a creative force called Dynamic Quality. 

> How do mechanistic behaviors such as magnetism and atomic attraction
> explain the "beauty element"?   Value derived from Essence is a much more
> plausible explanation for Beauty than Newton's laws ever will be.

Oh, I don't know. I've never been inside an iron filing, but it's behavior 
might suggest that it finds a magnet rather beautiful. 

> Let's get to the questions I posed:
> 
> 1)  Is it more logical to say that the essential nature of reality is
> Quality rather than Essence?
> 
> [Platt]:
> Yes. Quality infers values. Essence doesn't. A world without values would
> be unrecognizable.
> 
> [Ham]:
> Quality may infer "value judgments".  But it doesn't imply essentiality.

After Pirsig explains what he means by Quality, and then capitalizes it, 
the implication of its essentialism is fairly strong. But, as a word 
standing alone, you're right. 

> 2)  Is it epistemologically accurate to assert that Quality is
> "pre-intellectual"?
> 
> [Platt]:
> Yes.  It is what you know before you know anything intellectually.
> 
> [Ham]:
> No. Quality is a blank slate on which value judgments are written.  In the
> absence of consciousness quality is not only intellectually meaningless but
> non-existent.

So you claim. But no evidence offered other than "what everybody says."

> Now for those who
> weren't listening, I'd like to repeat the metaphysical proposition I tossed
> out to you and Arlo (with a couple of minor corrections):
> 
> > I submit that "sensible awareness" is a value.
> > And, since the beingness we all know as "beings-aware"
> > is our very reality, the property of "being" is also a value.
> > We all cherish life because we realize that without it
> > we would lose awareness of being -- our most valuable asset.
> 
> Did Platt jump up and down and shout "Hooray!" at this revelation?  No.  He
> matter-of-factly allowed as how there was nothing new or different in the
> statement.
> 
> > Nothing there to argue against. All creatures value their survival for
> > the very reason you cite.
> 
> Ham then went on to underscore the novelty of this concept:
> 
> > I'm suggesting that awareness and beingness are
> > "conditional values" of the primary source (Essence),
> > which is itself the absolute embodiment of Value.
> > Creation, then, may be posited as the experiential
> > separation of sensible awareness from substantive
> > beingness -- both values representing what is
> > "not other" to the essential source.
> 
> Unfortunately, he loses Platt in the process.
> 
> > Here you lose me. Why not simplify things by just saying
> > the primary source (Essence) includes (embodies) awareness,
> > beingness, experience and value all at the same time?
> > After all, you say that as far as Essence is concerned,
> > there is "no other."
> 
> Because Essence does not embody all these things.  It embodies only the
> VALUE of these things.  Essence is the absolute "coincidence" of
> contrarities like Beingness/nothingness, Consciousness/unconsciousness,
> Individuality/universality, Subjectivity/objectivity.  Such contradictory
> conditions (appearances) of existence represent the valuistic split of the
> essential "not other".  They are all metaphysically linked to the Value of
> Essence.
> 
> > Nor do I see a fundamental separation between awareness
> > and beingness. As Erwin Schroedinger put it, "The
> > external world and consciousness are one and the same thing."
> > Of course, an intellectual S/O based metaphysics balks at this
> > and finds it very hard to accept. Children have no problem with it.
> 
> Consider me a "child", then.
> 
> In my childlike innocence, I accept my existential reality as a divided,
> multi-phenomenal system of relational constituents.  This is my finite,
> proprietary cognizance of absolute reality.  But it's an intellectual
> construct separate and apart from the "not-other" of Essence.  Only the
> values that I sense conditionally have essential value.  All the
> "existential constructs" that I synthesize intellectually, including my
> notion of selfness, equate to the "not" of the "not-other".  I and my
> thoughts constitute the "negate" of otherness that is denied by Essence.
> Value -- not intellection or knowledge -- is my essential reality.
> 
> Any light coming in?

Sorry, no. Much too complicated for my simple mind. All I know is that you 
think your metaphysics is better than Pirsig's while I think the opposite. 
It's in the "betterness" that I rest my case.

Best,
Platt