[MD] Social Imposition ?

[Case]

[David M]
I see, I think this goes back to Pirsig's
discussion of causality. Sheldrake turns
this table too, and says mechanistic causality
is more anthropomorphic than seeing all
Others and object-Others as agentive and
purposive. And this goes back to quality-experience
as primary. We have no way to make any such
anthropomorphic vs non-anthropomorphic distinction.

[Case]
I will tactfully decline to comment on Sheldrake but if what you mean by
Pirsig's discussion of causality the section where he says: 

"The only difference between causation and value is that the word 'cause'
implies absolute certainty whereas the implied meaning of 'value' is one of
preference."

I agree with the thrust of what he is saying but again take issue with his
choice of terms and the spin it gets when put in the wrong hands. I have
previously argued that this should make people look at little more closely
at what we mean by "value". This implies to me that just as we have to look
harder at the meaning of "cause" in the classical sense we need to look
harder at what we mean by value in an ethical sense. If the terms are to be
used interchangeable we should be importing some of the meaning of classical
causality into ethics. But for most this seems to be a one way street and we
get all this stuff about apples falling to the ground because they like to
be there. And single cell organisms having preferences.

The fact is, even the "hard" sciences are coming to increasingly
probabilistic views of causality. I have mentioned in the past Jung's view
of synchronicity as meaningful coincidence. I have suggested that causality
is synchronicity with a high probability. That should match with your
anthormorphic/nonanthropomorphic distinction. Classical causality is 100
percent synchronous.

I have noticed something like this in the past listening to experts in
religious history debate, say the meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They talk
about the relative probability of their models being correct given the set
of data they have to work with. More recently in a series of lectures on
primate evolution Dr. Barbara King refers repeatedly to probable
explanations given the evidence at hand. I think many of the complaints
against materialism are based around the rather outdated notion anyone still
thinks in Newtonian terms in this regard.

But back to Pirsig, like so much of what he says in Lila, he is almost
there. He just barely misses. When he says: "...the implied meaning of
'value' is one of preference." He is really talking about probability and
likelihood. But we both know that's not going to fly in certain quarters
where it is all about what we like. And the MoQ contains no Math.