[MD] Essentialism and the MOQ

[Heather Perella]

> [SA previously]:
> > So reality is not moral?

     [Ham]
> That's right.  We live in a balanced universe in
> which sensible values run
> the gamut from good to bad, attractive to repulsive,
> beneficial to harmful,
> harmonious to discordant, pleasurable to painful,
> etc., etc.

     Isn't that a definition of moral?  A balanced
universe, running the gamut - moral decisions, right?

     [Ham] 
> Think about it, SA.  If reality were perfectly
> moral, and you were part of
> it, then you would be perfectly moral, too.

     Ah, but free choice, Ham.  Don't you believe in
free choice?  I know you do.  I experience it.  The
moral decisions will end up with quality experiences,
but immoral decisions go against the grain.  Simple,
right?

     [Ham]
  In fact, you would know nothing
> of immorality.

     Why do you think that?  A moral universe, I'm
beginning to think you think that means all is good. 
All can be good, but free choice, the wild dynamic
quality pre-intellectual.  Valuing certain experiences
over others, due to their quality and 'at oneness with
the universe'.  That's the path we choose, and
hopefully with a quality intellect to guide us.

     [Ham]
  NOW ask your question: Why would we
> moralize then?  How
> could we moralize  -- distinguish goodness from
> badness -- if everything was
> already moral?  The whole point of experiencing life
> as a free individual is
> to realize the value of an amoral reality.


     So we are amoral human beings just doing
whatever, and if we die, then we can murder, too? 
It's all amoral?  Not gettin' it.


     [Ham]
> In order to discover what Goodness is, we must also
> know what Evil is.


     Your thinking that because I say the universe is
moral, then I think no evil exists.  Evil does exist. 
Evil is the ultimate slipper slope where little
'things' like hate and rape go against the grain of
nature and against the oneness of nature.  It does not
go well for those that perform these disliking acts. 
Not only because people say so, but the disturbance of
life follows along those terrible paths.  Wouldn't you
think so?


     [Ham]
> Experiencing reality from a neutral (autonomous)
> position gives us the
> opportunity to sample both.


     This just sounds like you want to do whatever you
want.  You can, but without consequences?  Not gettin'
it.


     [Ham]
  That's how we use our
> gift of freedom to choose
> our values and act upon them.

     
     Yep, and what we choose has paths carved into the
universe, by us, and the universe simultaneously.  I
still believe in what one does come back as either
generating positive or negative forces.  How society
and intellect decides the more valuable ways to live
can either be with the natural Way or not with the
natural Way.  What is the natural Way?  We are in the
middle of finding that out as we live here on this
earth with sky.


     [Ham]
  Yes, we are "that
> powerful" --   even
> powerful enough to convert the value we sense in
> Essence to the finite
> images we experience in space/time.


  Meaning we see no distinctions in space/time if we
so want?  ok?

 
      [Ham]
> I have no idea, SA.

     I predicted you'd say that.


     [Ham]
  Why DO you circularize your
> questions?

     I'm trying to follow your logic at times, and
your logic is circular.


     [Ham]
  Why don't you
> just ask them, without rephrasing my statements in
> your own words and adding
> a question mark?  It would be much simpler for both
> of us.

     I guess I'm rephrasing them.  Didn't realize
that, but the questions I ask are valid on my part, to
understand you.


     [Ham]
> I don't know.  Why don't you ask them?


     Does anybody understand Ham's thesis?


     [Ham]
  You might
> have to explain what you
> mean by "blind faith".

     
     This means, by me, that are people just going
along with what you say, straight from the horses
mouth, so to speak, or are people actually trying to
use it, and speak it, in comprehension, as if they
know it and don't have to ask you about it anymore. 
Death does come, and we wouldn't want to be arguing
out your message, but I guess if it's as Dogen would
say.  We don't need books to understand it.  We can
reexperience Buddha without ever even knowing who
Buddha was, due to Buddha being a Way here, then I
guess you wouldn't need to bother with getting people
to understand your thesis.  A?


     [Ham]
  I don't think understanding
> a plausible concept
> presented by someone with conviction requires faith
> any more than it
> requires intellect, logic, and a receptive mind.

     That's what I'm sayin'.  Are people
intellectually, logically, and able to be receptive
with our minds to your thesis?  Many dumb people
livin' here, including this SA tiny skull.


     [Ham]
> Okay, we're playing "Pirsig Says" again.

     And if anybody would understand your thesis, we'd
be playing "Ham Says".  Are you jealous?  If not, then
what's wrong with Pirsig says?


     [Ham]
  And Pirsig says we use intellect.
> Fine, agreed.  But when he also says he doesn't have
> to define Quality
> because it's "intuitional", he's not using his
> intellect or ours.

     Does the intuition exist?  You don't know
everything Ham, remember?


     [Ham]
 He's begging the question.  Intuitively I understand
> quality as the relative
> value or workmanship of a thing.  That doesn't meet
> my requirements for "the
> primary empirical reality of the world."  Why do you
> accept this assertion
> without explanation, yet complain that my fully
> explained concept of Essence
> requires blind faith?

     I wasn't sayin' your Essence REQUIRES blind
faith.  I was just wondering if anybody comprehends
it.  I accept it, due to my long ago acceptance that I
don't know, and will never know everything about this
universe.  Now I read Pirsig who allows 'space' for
learning and mystery for that which we don't know, but
could know (learning), but will we ever fully know -
NO due to dynamic quality.  It just fits my assertion,
and the common language and explanation that Pirsig
give allows me to type on the MOQ.org with others that
notice what by common language we can call dq.


     [Ham] 
> If I'm expected to reply to this editorial opinion,
> kindly state your question.  (Otherwise, I'll have
to plead the 5th

     Am I right?  Your primary motive is to
philosophize a source?  Nothing wrong about that.  I
believe in a primary source, and I still call this
source/oneness G-d/Creator/Great Mystery, etc...


     [Ham]
> I never claimed to know everything, but I fail to
> see what that has to do with
> the above assertion.


     Quality is undefined - totally, so, therefore
this universe, which includes me, as an undefined
aspect of it, a mystery, an unknown.


     [Ham]
Now you seem to be criticizing me for coming up with a
"knowledgeable argument" rather than a faith-based
concept.  Or is it that you suspect my "motive" is to
postulate a knowledgeable argument?

-----

      We might have had too many disagreements and
that's probably why your thinking I'm criticizing you.
 I'm not criticizing you.  I like to know motive.  It
gives me clarity that is helpful to my understanding,
even of your thesis.  So, yes, your trying to
postulate a knowledgeable argument.


     [Ham]
  Again, if you could
construct a simple, direct question, I would be happy
to answer it.  Instead
you've composed a dissertation on what you think a
philosophy should be and
(I guess) want to know if it's "where I'm coming
from.)  I can't answer yes
or no, and I can't elaborate on an idea I don't
understand.

-------

     I'm not defining what a philosophy should or
should not be.  Yes, knowing 'where your coming from'
helps me understand your thesis.  


     [Ham]
Please don't get me involved in environmental issues.
-------

     These are acts within this universe.  I was just
giving an example.  War, poverty, all those nasty
things are immoral, right?  We don't have to talk
about morality.  But whatever decisions you make,
which is my point, actions and behaviors come from
such decisions, but since you believe the universe is
amoral, then I guess whatever you do, you think it
doesn't matter.


     [Ham]
  Just because chemical pollutants have an impact on
Nature doesn't mean that it is a higher
priority issue than our national economy, the Iraqi
war, illegal aliens, or
finding new energy sources.

---------

     I'm just pointing out immoral events in this
universe, but you don't believe morals play out in
this universe, so... anyways...


     [Ham]
  All of these are "quality" issues.  It's a play
on words to suggest that Quality and Nature are
synonymous,

--------

     Biology and inorganic (social and intellectual)
are levels of static quality.


     [Ham]
 and that solving pollution is the "right Way", while
solving the outsourcing problem is the
"wrong Way."

-------

     Never said "outsourcing" is "wrong Way".  Social
level is to be one with nature, too.  The quality
outcome depends on our intellectual decisions, and
that outcome being one of quality or not is moral
decisions playing out in the universe.


     [Ham]
  That's more non-intellectual Pirsigian talk that
isn't worthy
of my time here.

--------------

     I know you value the quality of your thesis.  As
I said, your thesis is playing out on the intellectual
level and the quality that comes from it will either
be with nature or find itself extinct.


[SA previously]:
> The choices are made.  Is everything of quality?
> Biology and the inorganic have been long
established,
> so, the quality that is held upon these levels has
> been long at work in establishing the quality.


     [Ham]
"...the quality that is held ... has been at work in
establishing the
quality"?
Does this make sense to you?  

----------------

     No, that's my mistake.  What I was trying to say
is that the quality that has staticly established
itself on the biological and inorganic levels will not
change easily, if at all.  So, the social and
intellectual levels are constrained by these 'more
conservative' levels.


     [Ham]
If you accept my use of Value, it is Man, not
Quality, who chooses what values will be applied to
improving his world.

     When we choose rightly, a way that has quality,
then we are walking the Way that is quality.  We would
notice quality everywhere.  We can staticly define the
particulars of quality, if we want to.  Human beings
(why do you use the archaic: Man version of talking
about people), anyways, human beings are of quality,
so, quality has an array of quality decisions and
diversity, all that can be staticly defined, but then
again, I notice a oneness that exists here in the
universe.  How we don't make quality decisions is to
fail to be one with nature.


     [Ham]
Who decides if my philosophy has "quality"?  Me?  You?
 The public?

----------

     Wouldn't you say you do, I do, and everybody that
comes into contact with your thesis?  We may say it
has no quality, but if you hold tough with your
thesis, in time, somebody might find the quality that
you've found in your thesis.  A quality that allows it
to survive past you.


     [Ham]
I appreciate your advice, SA, but you still have some
false impressions of
what Essentialism is about.

-----

     Sorry, but I'm not giving you advice.  I'm
chattin' with ya.


     [Ham]
 Man cannot have direct "knowledge of the
source"; he can only sense its value.  Any philosophy
is based to some
extent on intuitive precepts, and is therefore a
"belief system".

---------
 
     And you seemed so distressed about blind faith?


     [Ham]
  Also, I don't acknowledge an "intellectual level"
apart from the individual or a
"social level" apart from society.

--------

     Why would you?  I don't think these levels are
separated from the individual or society.  These
levels are just categories of real events, not
separated from such events, the thoughts/categories
are one with the events, better than just mirroring
them, though thoughts do that, but the pointing that
thoughts do, the directions thoughts point us are one
with these events.  Unless the thoughts are not one
with nature, then they'll not stick around.


     [Ham]
  The idea that something regarded as
intellectual is "morally more fit to exist" than
something social makes no
sense to me.  

--------

     That's why the lower levels constrain the upper
levels.  If the upper levels don't fit into the longer
established lower levels, then the power coming from
that upper level must be mighty or else those lower
levels won't change, thus, the specifics in the upper
levels will not be fitting in, and thus, disappear in
time.


     [Ham]
We are all intellectual creatures who are also members
of a
society.  I attempt to appeal to society through the
intellect of my
readers.

----------

     ok... we all do that.


     [Ham]
I suggest you take another walk in the woods, SA.

------

     Your like the troubled residents I work with,
trying to get that last dig in, why?  Why do you
think, since your intellectual, that I need to take
another walk in the woods, at this moment, Ham?  Is
walking in the woods good for people?  An event of
quality, A?  Or, am I going to see PA dancing in the
trees?  What are you trying to say here?  Do you need
a Time Out?


woods,
SA




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