[MD] Essentialism and the MOQ

[Laird Bedore]

Hi Chin,

I've just been kind of chuckling my way through the branches of this 
thread... I like your response. But this is something I've just got to 
shout to everyone:

Hint everybody..... MU!
The question is all screwed up!

Okay. I'm gonna draw a quaint ASCII picture:

Laird's metric scale of morality:
immoral 0 |=======50========| 100 moral

This little pictograph says wonders about how people are using the term 
and idea of "morality"... So many people think of "moral" as the 100 end 
of this slide. Morality isn't 0, or 100, or anywhere inbetween. It is 
the WHOLE continuum.

Morality is Quality. The Source. The One. In our reality, things happen 
that are anywhere from 0 to 100 on that scale, and they're all moral. 
They're all quality events. Some are high-quality and some are 
low-quality, but they're all quality. I can't even count how many times 
Pirsig illustrates this, I thought it was so obvious I almost feel bad 
bringing it up.

So to touch on a (rephrased) question brought up somewhere in the 
threads, why do (high quality) things tend to happen?

Well, both high-quality and low-quality things happen (DQ). I think it's 
pretty random. Some might call this chaos. I might too, I'm not sure 
yet. When enough fairly high-quality things happen, a pattern emerges 
(read: it latches statically). Low-quality things latch statically too, 
but they don't string themselves into recognizable patterns quite as 
easily cause their results are rather chaotic and indistinguishable. 
Eventually we've got humans and brains and we identify patterns. The 
ones that are furthest from chaos (the most "patterned" or organized) 
are the easiest to identify, and thus we identify them easily. From this 
process of identifying the most distinguishable patterns, we get the 
impression that an awful lot of good things happen and that it can't 
just quite be coincidence. Then we go on to ask questions like "why do 
high quality things tend to happen?"

Mu. The question imposes an (implicit, exclusive) assumption that makes 
the answer unreachable.

AH! Oh, I feel much better now. Sorry, long day at work and the cynicism 
needed an outlet.

-Laird


PhaedrusWolff at carolina.rr.com wrote:
> How could man discover good and bad in an amoral universe?
>
> Good question Laramie,
>
> If humanity were not moral, we would not be having this conversation. 
>
> If being moral is higher than being amoral, an amoral universe could 
> not have created a moral being.    
>
> Chin
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: LARAMIE LOEWEN <jeffersonrank1 at msn.com>
> Date: Monday, November 27, 2006 1:30 am
> Subject: Re: [MD] Essentialism and the MOQ
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>
>   
>> Hi Ham --
>>
>>     
>>> Whitehead wants to justify the "goodness" of God for the same 
>>>       
>> reason that
>>     
>>> Pirsig wants to justify the "universality of goodness".  The 
>>>       
>> statement "His
>>     
>>> necessary goodness expresses the determination of his consequent 
>>>       
>> nature">seems to prove my point.  What "necessary goodness"?  What 
>> is the
>>     
>>> metaphysical basis for Whitehead's premise that goodness is a 
>>>       
>> necessary>attribute of the creation, or Pirsig's premise that 
>> morality is innate in
>>     
>>> the universe?  God [Essence] knows no distinctions.  Goodness is 
>>>       
>> for MAN to
>>     
>>> discover, along with Badness.  I submit that such evaluations are 
>>>       
>> only>possible in an amoral universe in which man is the autonomous 
>> subject.
>>     
>>> Think on that, Laramie, and tell me why it doesn't make sense.  
>>>       
>> How could man discover good and bad in an amoral universe?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Laramie
>>
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