[MD] Dawkins a Materialist (is watching?)

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Arlo previously]
The Universe, and mind, emerged from Quality interactions among individuals in
increasingly complex collectives.

[Platt]
Where did such a system come from?

[Arlo]
>From those Quality interactions.

[Arlo previously]
Are Quality and Consciousness separate? Or is Quality conscious?

[Platt]
Consciousness is separate but related to Quality which, as you know, is direct
experience.

[Arlo]
Where did this consciousness come from?

[Platt]
What about direct experience. Is that also a metaphor? 

[Arlo]
Pre-intellectual experience, mysticism we may agree to call it, is by definition
"pre-metaphor" (although the terms here are all metaphors to describe this
after-the-fact). But at the moment this experience gets woven with words,
descriptions and the like, we are dealing with metaphor.

[Arlo previously]
Again... I emphasize the PAGES and depth of Pirsig's insight, which extends far
beyond this simply jib. And was selected by Pirsig, like Zen was in ZMM, for a
reason. Second, to say this is parallel to me saying "Christian ethics allow
burning women at the stake". 

[Platt]
Which you take great delight in emphasizing, among other horrors. Shall we
mention bloodbaths sponsored by atheists?

[Arlo]
If our morality comes from "who or what is responsible for more deaths, or more
recent deaths, or more hideous deaths, etc." then we are in trouble. Whether we
literalize dogma or atheism, the dangers of abuse are severe. I do not turn a
blind-eye to the horrors of atheist dictators, nor should you turn a blind-eye
to the horrors of theistic dictators. In both cases, it is not spirituality nor
a lack thereof that is to blame, but the literalization of that belief. 

[Platt]
Well, yes, but I thought we were talking about social ethics, not enlightenment.

[Arlo]
I'd say the two are flip-sides of the same coin.