[MD] Distinguishing Levels

[Platt Holden]

> [Case]
> I think social morality is grounded in biology. Society (and here I
> would include ants, bees and chimpanzees) is an evolutionary strategy. I
> am not sure what the intellectual level is and don't really have an
> opinion about it.

Pirsig does NOT include ants, bees and chimps in the social level 
(society). "One can also call ants and bees "social" insects, but for 
purposes of precision in the MOQ social patterns should be defined as 
human and subjective.  Unlike cells and bees and ants they cannot be 
detected with an objective scientific instrument.  For example there is 
no objective scientific instrument that can distinguish between a king 
and commoner, because the difference is  social."

> [Platt]
> You must suffer a great deal of angst when you eat a hamburger or even a
> tomato.
> 
> [Case]
> Having respect for life does not make one a Jain.

What's a "Jain?'

> [Platt]
> > P.S. I suspect you consider your ideas better than mine. :-)
> 
> [Case]
> I am evolving an increasing probabalistic view of almost everything. So
> it is fair to say that I believe my ideas have a higher probability of
> being correct. I think what Pirsig says about ideas having quality this
> is what he mean. We should not speak in terms of rightness and wrongness
> but terms of likehood and utility.

You mean we "probably" should not speak in terms of rightness and 
wrongness.:-)  Instead I think we definitely should think in terms of 
rightness and wrongness, like as Pirsig says: "But what's not so 
obvious is that, given a value-centered Metaphysics of Quality, it is 
absolutely, scientifically moral for a doctor to prefer the 
patient.This is not just an arbitrary social convention that should 
apply to some doctors but not to all doctors, or to some cultures but 
not all cultures. It's true for all people at all times, now and 
forever, a moral pattern of reality as real as H20."

Platt