[MD] Ham unlike you I will not crreate false idols

[Platt Holden]

Ham --

> I don't know why you want to make my life difficult, but it seems you feel
> the need to challenge everything I say.

No intent to make your life difficult. If you do not welcome my challenges to 
what you say, just pass the word and I will desist. When debate ceases to be 
fun, it's time to say, "No mas."  

> > I thought you said that morality was based on aesthetic sensibilities.
> > Now it's an intellectual judgment. So is it one, or the other, or both?
> > If it's intellectual, what are its premises?
> 
> We can make intellectual judgments about our feelings, can't we?  How do you
> judge Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto as a better work than, say, Prokofiev's
> 1st (which I happen to think is a masterpiece)?

I judge works of art on aesthetic sensibility, a feeling that this is better 
than that. I can then express by feelings to you without making any 
intellectual judgments unless you consider choosing words to express oneself to 
be the mark of intellectualism.

> [Ham]:
> > If the wolf seizing and devouring the goat is not wrong
> > by your universal principle ('might makes right'),
> > then neither was Hitler or Pol Pot.
> 
> [Platt]:
> > "My" universal principle of might makes right? When did I
> > espouse that as my universal moral principle?
> 
> On 12/23 Platt said:
> > Animals compete under the biological level morality of "might
> > makes right," also known as the "Law of the Jungle."

Animals, yes. Do you then consider men to be animals so that my saying "Animals 
compete . . ." meant to you that I was espousing a universal moral principle 
that applied to humans? I notice you avoided my question, "Do you not see any 
moral difference between animals and men?" And ignored my answer, "I certainly 
do."  Each evolutionary level -- inorganic, biological, social and intellectual 
-- operates under a different, moral code. The only universal moral code 
consists of these separate and distinct codes, each fighting for dominance. 
Right now in America the biological code that finds goodness in sex and 
violence is winning, to the detriment of our society and the degradation of 
discrimination in values as you have so eloquently written about.    

> [Platt]:
> > What is the difference between the scientific way of establishing truth
> > and the "objective validation" way?
> 
> Scientific methodology is objective.  What is truth to the scientific
> community is what has been universally established by objective evidence.
> There is no objective evidence for metaphysical theories, which is why they
> remain hypotheses.

So there is no difference between science methodology and objective validation?
Is that correct?

> [Ham, previously]:
> > You're right: Essence will never by scientifically verified.  But then,
> > neither will your proprietary awareness, your joys and sorrows, your
> > passions and aspirations, your disdain for injustice.
> 
> [Again, Platt]:
> > Nor can  those things be verified by your "objective validation" unless
> > you know of a method of reading minds. Either that or I don't understand
> > "objective validation."
> 
> Okay, hold your fire.  I see the problem.  It stems from a misconception of my
> answer to this question:
> 
> [Platt, previously]:
> > You seem to say on one hand that only science can be called upon to
> > establish truth. On the other hand you ask us to believe in an Essence
> > which science cannot verify. What gives?
> 
> [Ham]:
> > Not Science per se, but objective validation that is universally
> > acknowledged.
> 
> My answer was addressed to your first statement only.  I didn't bother to
> answer the "What gives?" because I thought your assertion that science can't
> verify Essence was a throw-away line.  Of course Essence can't be verified
> scientifically; neither can Quality.  But I presumed that was understood.
> 
> Therefore the next two challenges -- How can any of that be measured
> in the laboratory and verified? When did Pirsig say that Quality was not
> capable of empirical validation? -- are accessories after the fact.
> 
> I know that Pirsig has stated somewhere that Quality can't be defined but
> haven't yet found the source.  I was able to locate these two
> quotations, however:
> 
> "The whole purpose of scientific method is to make valid distinctions
> between the false and the true in nature, to eliminate the subjective,
> unreal, imaginary elements from one's work so as to obtain an objective,
> true, picture of reality. When he said Quality was subjective, to them he
> was just saying Quality is imaginary and could therefore be disregarded in
> any serious consideration of
>           -- ZMM
> 
> "My problem with "essence", is not that it isn't there or that it is not the
> same as Quality.  It is that positivists usually deny "essence" as something
> like "God" or "the absolute" and dismiss it experimentally unverifiable, which
> is to say they think you are some kind of religious nut. The advantage of
> Quality is that it cannot be dismissed as unverifiable without falling into
> absurdity.
>           -- RP to HP
> 
> (Note that he didn't say Quality COULD be verified positively, only that it
> "could not be dismissed" as unverifiable.)

In a letter to Bo Skutvik, Pirsig made it clear that Quality is positively 
verifiable:

"Arguments that value is unreal can be reduced to absurdity by the question, 
"Do you think a five dollar bill has the same value as an one dollar bill? If 
so, are you willing to trade some bills?" and "If not, why not? What's the 
difference?" If they give the standard answer that money is a convention you 
can ask, "What kind of convention is a crash in the stock market?" Conventions 
are static, but as every good trader knows stock prices are a mixture of static 
and dynamic factors. This can be expanded hugely into a discussion of the stock 
exchange indexes whose sole purpose is the measurement of value and expanded 
further into the large areas of economics. Consider how many books have been 
written on economics that don't touch on the real meaning of value! "

> [Ham, previously]:
> > An amoeba, like a leukocyte or blade of grass, reacts to external
> > stimuli. This is not "knowledge" or awareness, Platt.
> 
> [Platt]:
> > How do you know? Can you "objectively validate" that a
> > blade of grass has no awareness?
> 
> I myself can't; but since it has no central nervous system (primary
> objective requisite for consciousness) I'm quite certain a biologist would
> validate this fact for you.

Hmmm. Since neither biologists nor anyone else knows what consciousness is 
(although theories abound) it's hardly an objective certainty that a nervous 
system is required for it to be. Many flora behave as if they were aware. The 
venus fly trap comes immediately to mind, but I remember reading about trees 
who respond to the environment by increasing sap production or some such  
response to stimuli which would indicate a form of consciousness.
 
> [Platt]:
> > I wish you'd convince Hamas of the "full autonomy of individual
> > Freedom."
> 
> [Ham]:
> > > Hamas has dramatically demonstrated its knowledge of this fact.
> 
> [Platt]:
> > How so? By pledging to kill Jews?
> 
> Not only by "pledging to kill Jews" but, as the major terrorist organization in
> Palestine, demanding that Israel be destroyed, and murdering hundreds of
> innocent Israelis to prove it.  That's taking advantage of the autonomy of
> freedom in my book!

I guess you and I have different definitions of "autonomy of freedom" which is 
probably a redundancy since "autonomy" means "freedom of one's actions." To 
kill Jews robs them of their autonomy to say the least, to which Hamas shows 
little if any understanding unless you call hatred a form of knowledge..    

At any rate, if you are not enjoying this conversation, let me know. Good 
manners (which are rapidly disappearing) that we both believe are an essential 
characteristic of a decent society require that I not deliberately offend. 

Morally yours,
Platt