[MD] From each... to each

[Ham Priday]

Hi SA (Platt mentioned) --


While it has been some time since you and I discussed philosophy, I
considered you a person with a logical mind.  Now that you've adopted the
metaphyics of Quality, I'm beginning to wonder whether it's those daily
Nature walks, Pirsig's notion of morality, or Taoism that has affected your
intellect.

You said (to Platt):

> Without goodness in the world, the world will be not good,
> and that would be not good for this world at all.

Is there any logic in that assertion?  If you take "the world" out of it,
what you're essentially saying is "Without goodness there would be no
goodness and that would not be good."

Now, aside from the fact that "goodness" seems to mean nothing more than
"survival" for you, how would you know what goodness is if there were no
goodness in the world?

I would suggest that you explore this even further.  How do you know that
survival is good?
It's good -- for you -- that you survive and flourish.  But if there were no
SA to exalt in his particular life-experience, would there be any less
goodness in the world?

Platt tried to make some sense of your assertion by saying:

> [T]he "good" is different at different levels, and the levels fight
> one another for dominance. What is biologically good
> (germs want to live) is not good at the social and intellectual levels
> (we kill deadly germs so society and individuals can survive).
> Another problem with "the world is good" is that people have
> different ideas about "goodness."

You bet they do!  Goodness is relative to the subject who evaluates it.
There's no "morality" in the fact that the evaluator has survived.  If I am
reasonably well for a man of my advanced years, or if I win the lottery, I
consider that good for me.  It's not necessarily good for the world at large
or any other person.  Whether or not the germ "wants to live", as Platt
suggests, the fact that it lives may be the reason for my demise.  Is this
good or bad?   The morality of this situation is that it's good for the
germ, bad for me.  Fighting for survival is a biological mechanism waged on
the micro-physical level.  It has nothing to do with morality.

Again, I quote Platt:

> To go much further in contemplating moral questions is what
> most people avoid, like they avoid contemplating their own demise,
> the worst evil of all. For that reason I'm suggesting that one of the
> barriers to wide acceptance of the MOQ is its emphasis on morality
> which most people would rather not think about in any depth.

In truth, if you think about it in any depth, you will realize that what is
the "worst evil of all for you" has not the slightest moral significance to
the average Iraqi muslim, Bill Gates, or George Bush.  That's because
goodness is relative, morality is relative, and your existence is relative.
Indeed, if you think about it with any depth, you may come to understand
that all value is relational -- the individual's sense of his lost Essence.

Essentially yours,
--Ham