[MD] Distinguishing Levels

[Case]

[Ham]
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.

[Case]
I was a frequent flyer in these discussions during the last half of last
year. Unfortunately my user had to get a real job. So between Real Life
and the commitments I have in my native land of Norrath I have very little
time. As many have noted these discussions are highly addictive. Rather
than unsubscribing I have managed to remain a lurker and just chime in
occasionally.

[Ham]
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 ;-)

[Case]
Sadly, I think I was being facetious to the point of insult. Steiner is
associated with the theosophists and believed it Ashaki records or some
such nonsense. Scott Roberts actually convinced me to read Barfield. About
all I can say about that experience is that I could find more sense and
any random paragraph of Russell’s ‘Science and Philosophy’ that
Barefield’s entire book.


[Ham]
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 perception 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.

[Case]
Thanks, that is a pretty succinct statement of my position. I find Pirsig
interesting to the extent that he is restating Taoism for westerners and I
was hopeful that he was setting up a metaphysical foundation for Chaos
theory. I didn’t find a lot of support for that here.

[Ham]
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?

[Case]
While I am perfectly willing to say that purpose resides in us. I don’t
believe that it exists outside of us. It is not a property of nature.

[Ham]
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?

[Case]
I thought Pirsig was setting up the central idea in his metaphysics as
undefined. Even when I first read him in the 70s I thought his choice of
the term Quality was a bad one. It has too much baggage and diverts
attention away from the Taoist conception of ‘Harmony’, 'Balance' and ‘The
Way’

[Ham]
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.

[Case]
I am at a heart a solipsist and I don’t see why more people don’t adopt
this view. Just kidding about the last part. But I do not see any logical
way to prove that anything exists outside of my own awareness. I reject
solipsism purely as a matter of faith. I accept a form of SOM in that I
believe I am the only subject in the universe and that everything outside
of my skin is object. On faith I grant your existence but you are mere
object as far as I am concerned. I further acknowledge that you are
entitled to the same view. Thus for me in SOM S is always singular.
Subjects do not exist. Further, Objectivity is always a matter of
intersubjectivity. But this is not the kind of SOM Pirsig rails against.

But there you go
 you trapped me into a lengthy discourse which I have
been seeking to avoid. My user really needs the job so I will have to
regard this as a stubbed toe in my personal MOQ 12 Step program. But I
suppose we all must take these things one day at a time.