[MD] Essentialism and the MOQ

Tue Nov 28 16:12:37 PST 2006

> 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

Hi laird,

I hope I am the cause of or at least subject of some of your chuckles. 
A little light-heartedness goes along way IMHO in keeping things in 
perspective. 

I understand what you are saying about Quality, and agree. In all 
fairness, Ham did say earlier the dichotomies he comes up with 
are “How we think,” and in the West, this is true. 

Per your scale, 0 would be pure evil, and 100 would be pure Good. I 
asked if he admitted his philosophy was based on SOM, but don’t think 
I got an answer on this. In his view, Quality would have to be opposed 
to non-quality -- it would need be one or the other. It would go along 
with the thinking in order to know what happiness is, you would have 
to know sadness. 

I guess the best way to qualify this would be to look at Quality as 
the Greek word Areté before, as Pirsig put it, “the dialecticians ever 
thought about putting it in word traps”  -- the Greeks never had to 
ask the question “What is good?” Like Dharma, it was just a way of 
life. 

Maybe he should have just used the word Areté, but then no one would 
know what he was talking about, huh? -- plus I’d have to figure out 
how to get that little thingy on top the e without going to the 
Character Map. ;o)

I’d try to explain Morality, but then all those Blue Haired Ladies 
from the church might come after me with their umbrellas and 
pocketbooks. 

Anyway, I’m having fun, just hope I am not tooo irritating.  

Chin

----- Original Message -----
From: Laird Bedore <lmbedore at vectorstar.com>
Date: Monday, November 27, 2006 11:20 pm
Subject: Re: [MD] Essentialism and the MOQ
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org

> 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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