[MD] Is Morality innate in the cosmos?

[Michael Hamilton]

Arlo, Ham

Thanks for reiterating that stuff, Arlo. I particularly love your
summary at the end:

>"Quality", "Essence", whatever analogy you use to
>describe "experience, life, reality, stuff, whatever" is always that, an
>analogy, an artistic creation, and part of the mythos, not separate.

Amen to that.

Ham: I responded to you in the spirit of what you seemed to mean by
"mythos" in the context of your post: not the network of dead
metaphors that, as Arlo describes, form the meanings that we now
consider to be 'literal'; but simply, religious myth. These myths,
stories and parables that you were referring to as mythos were never
originally intended to be taken literally - they were intended as
means to a spiritual understanding, and therefore can be considered as
part of the positive aspect that you want to salvage from religious
spirituality, although, in congealed form, they also consititute part
of the negative aspect of dead dogma that you would appear to want to
leave behind.

What do you think? Have I understood you correctly?

Regards,
Mike

On 2/9/06, Arlo J. Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu> wrote:
> [Ham had said]
> This is the purpose of philosophical inquiry, which can incorporate the
> spiritual values of mankind -- as religion does -- but without the mythos and
> dogma that have been handed down as the "Will of the Almighty" since the dawn
> of civilization.
>
> [Mike replied]
> I agree with this (although I wouldn't be so hard on mythos: myths and stories
> can be of great value when not taken literally - but this is a minor quibble).
>
> [Arlo jumps in]
> I missed this, but feel obliged to jump in.
>
> One can't escape the "mythos", to think one can is (as Pirsig says) not to
> understand what the mythos is. The mythos is the sum total of a cultural belief
> system, whether arranged around "Odin" or "Essence" or "Quality" makes no
> difference. The mythos is the analogy by which we describe experience.
>
> Ham's thesis, Pirsig's MOQ, are both part of the mythos, the more they are
> understood and accepted, the more a part of the mythos they are. The only thing
> "outside of" the mythos is insanity, the regenerative and destructive DQ by
> which the mythos evolves.
>
> We tend to use the word "myth" as a way of saying "quaint old beliefs", but our
> beliefs are every much "myth" as those of the Vikings, the aboriginies, the
> Sioux, and the Jomon.
>
> Pirsig, in ZMM, "What keeps the world from reverting to the Neanderthal with
> each generation is the continuing, ongoing mythos, transformed into logos but
> still mythos, the huge body of common knowledge that unites our minds as cells
> are united in the body of man. To feel that one is not so united, that one can
> accept or discard this mythos as one pleases, is not to understand what the
> mythos is."
>
> And, "Now it comes! Because Quality is the generator of the mythos. That's it.
> That's what he meant when he said, "Quality is the continuing stimulus which
> causes us to create the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of
> it." Religion isn't invented by man. Men are invented by religion. Men invent
> responses to Quality, and among these responses is an understanding of what
> they themselves are. You know something and then the Quality stimulus hits and
> then you try to define the Quality stimulus, but to define it all you've got to
> work with is what you know. So your definition is made up of what you know.
> It's an analogue to what you already know. It has to be. It can't be anything
> else. And the mythos grows this way. By analogies to what is known before. The
> mythos is a building of analogues upon analogues upon analogues. These fill the
> collective consciousness of all communicating mankind. Every last bit of it.
> The Quality is the track that directs the train. What is outside the train, to
> either side...that is the terra incognita of the insane."
>
> Also, "But the mythos goes on, and that which destroys the old mythos becomes
> the new mythos..."
>
> Finally, "[Such thing as mind and matter, subject and object, form and
> substance] are just ghosts, immortal gods of the modern mythos which appear to
> us to be real because we are in that mythos. But in reality they are just as
> much an artistic creation as the anthropomorphic Gods they replaced."
>
> That last sentence is key. "Quality", "Essence", whatever analogy you use to
> describe "experience, life, reality, stuff, whatever" is always that, an
> analogy, an artistic creation, and part of the mythos, not separate.
>
> Arlo
>
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