[MD] Distinguishing Levels

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, Case (and Platt) -- 


You seem to be an infrequent participant in this forum.  I wonder why.  You
are last listed in my mailbox for several posts back in the fall of 2005.
In one of them, you sided with me on lumping the Big Bang in with Evolution.
You also helped dig me out of the bullshit (it was the thread title) by
observing that "Ham isn't the weirdest after all."  But you seemed to be
justifying this on the basis of Steiner and Barfield, neither of whom I'm
very acquainted with, so I don't know just how facetious your comment was
meant to be ;-)

I did find some empathy with your assessment of the Quality concept, which I
hope Platt had an opportunity to see:

> I think the cleavage of reality into Chaos and Order is really
> what the MoQ is all about. ...I see it as the fundamental
> ontology of the MoQ. Quality is the preception of harmony.
> It is where things are right, when the motorcycle is tuned and
> purring, when people see that the putting together a barbeque
> grill is really sculpture, when the sophist lays down with the
> dialectician. All this happens with opposing forces are in
> balance. We call it Quality.

Your recent response to Platt's question concerning "evolution moving to
betterness" is to my mind the solitary voice of reason on this issue.

> The notion of "betterness" has nothing to do with evolution.
> Evolution is a biological theory of how species and populations
> find balance in the environment. "Betterness" is a value judgement
> that you can make if it makes you feel "better" but it has no place
> in biology.

One reason that I found this interesting is that Platt seems to feel that
evolution has served its purpose because it only applies to the creation of
new species.  Since the era of Homo sapiens is but a dot on an evolutionary
chart, how could any single generation know if man himself is evolving?

But what really struck me was your conclusion: "Betterness" is a value
judgment that you can make if it makes you feel "better".  How true!  Why is
it that the Pirsigians can't see this?  Why do they insist on promoting the
doctrine that "betterness" is programmed into some extra-corporeal dimension
called Quality?  Perhaps a better question is: What would become of
"betterness" if there was no subjective awareness?

As a voice of reason -- for me, at least -- possibly you can explain why
proprietary awareness is anathema to the MoQers.

I'd be genuinely interested in your answer.

Best regards,
Ham