[MD] Dawkins a Materialist (is watching?)

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Arlo Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu>:

> [Platt]
> I don't see much about an ethical system in the above, and no mention 
> of an 8-fold path. I have read ZMM. That's why I asked. I thought I 
> missed something. Apparently not.
> 
> [Arlo]
> While Pirsig does not mention the term "Eight Fold Path", it 
> obviously underlies his thinking, as made clear several times in his 
> words. In any event, Pirsig pairs an understanding of Quality tightly 
> with the Buddha, the Tao and in LILA with Native American culture. As 
> far as I know, he has made no ties with "Judeo-Christian ethics". 
> Again I propose a reason for this might be that these "belief 
> systems" are not mired in two-thousand years of S/O-dominant culture, 
> and as such represent Quality in a clear way.

I assume S/O intellect was the same intellect that helped early man
find food, shelter and clothing -- as described by Pirsig. I also
assume that most ancient cultures were God-driven to one extent or another, and
that it was only with the rise of science that God was driven out from
modern cultures of both East and West. Didn't Indian cultures, for instance,
believe in many Gods? 

> [Platt]
> Ah, the issue of Truth. We certainly act as if there is Truth, such 
> as the assertion that "Any symbolic representation will ultimately be 
> incomplete." Is that statement True, partially True, sometimes True, 
> or what? Looks like we might be getting involved in logical absurdities.
> 
> [Arlo]
> You always act like this is some shockingly new revelation. Perhaps 
> you should spend more time contemplating Zen, as did Pirsig.

Nothing new about paradoxes. I do find them fascinating, however. Like
the assertion, "There are no absolutes."
 
> [Platt]
> Well, since it's all metaphors we can only guess about Pirsig's 
> Truth. In one instance he considers it good, in another he considers 
> it impractical in the modern world.
> 
> [Arlo]
> You seem to looking for an externally imposed "objective" Truth.

Aren't we all? 

> [Platt]
> That individual rights come from God, not other men.
> 
> [Arlo]
> See, that's scary to me. Because "God" tends to be historically 
> preferential. I mean, the Great Founders had no problem with slavery. 
> Their "God", apparently, only granted these rights to a particular 
> group of people. It was not until much later, using reason and 
> secular humanistic foundations, that we've learned to apply this 
> "right" to all people, regardless of faith, not because some 
> extracorporeal entity "said so", but because it we know from reason 
> that it is "better". The "social contract" is always an agreement 
> among people, "God" was only used as an authority (and a poor one, 
> oftentimes) and enforcer.

Refer to my remarks in another post about why I consider "other people" scary
when it comes to establishing and protecting individual rights.

> [Platt]
> Yes. So reverting to ancient cultures such as those of the East and 
> Indians may not be all some think it's cracked up to be.
> 
> [Arlo]
> As always, we should take the Good and scrap the bad. Pirsig 
> highlights much, much Good we should learn and adopt from these 
> non-S/O cultures. Again, there is a reason why he ends LILA with a 
> recognition that Indians got it right all along. Theirs was not an 
> S/O culture. And so in tossing off our own S/O chains, we should look 
> to them, and the Zen Buddhists, and other non-S/O cultures for 
> sign-posts and an understanding of what non-S/O Quality is (which is 
> just what Pirsig did).

Guess we have to have a discussion of what is an S/O culture and when and where
it became dominant.

> [Arlo had asked]
> And let me ask you a side question. If all this is a preplanned 
> design, what does it mean when we (humans) drive a species (flower, 
> whale, bird, whatever) into extinction? Is that, too, preplanned? Are 
> we destroying God's design when we do so? Or do the other parts of 
> the design exist only to service us?
> 
> I ask this, because it would seem to me, that a belief in a 
> preplanned designed would engender more respect for the design that 
> it appears to. Religious people should be among the most vocal in 
> stewardship and protection of God's design. Why is it always the 
> other way around (seemingly)?

Not being God I cannot tell you whether the design includes those who
question and want to change it or not. It's possible the design is designed
to self-destruct.
 
> Actually, what's quite telling here, is that Zen Buddhism and Native 
> American spirituality, the same ethos that Pirsig uses to develop 
> Quality, are also the most protective and respectful of "the design". 
> While ethos steeped heavily in S/O dominance tend to be the most 
> destructive of "the design". If Pirsig likens Quality to the Buddha, 
> the Tao, and finds strong resonance in Native American spirituality 
> and life, and these are all ethical systems that value respect for 
> "being part of the world", shouldn't this be something we consider as 
> quite important?
> 
> [Platt]
> IMO the environmental movement is vastly overblown with the motive of 
> gaining control of people's lives, the ancient game of grabbing for 
> power, always in the name of the "public good."
> 
> [Arlo]
> This is not what I asked. I asked, why do those who argue for 
> "design" seem the least concerned with protecting and respecting that 
> "design"? If it IS all "design", as you yourself claim to believe it 
> to be, then what is the morality of not only passively observing 
> parts of that design destroyed, but also actively encouraging it? 
> This would seem to me to evidence a belief that while it is a 
> "design", we are the only part of it that really matter, the rest 
> exists to service us. Is that wrong?

See above about the possibility of a self-destructive design. We know
our world will be extinguished someday.

> Furthermore, if the primary ethos Pirsig uses to descibe Quality, the 
> Zen Buddhist, the Taoist and the Native American, are all much more 
> historically respectful of "being part of the world", and are non-S/O 
> dominant, isn't this "mystic" appreciation for "design", of "being 
> part of the world", of not destroying the patterns around us, 
> something to be considered as pretty important?

See above.

> [Platt previously]
> Where did such a system come from?
> 
> [Arlo had replied]
>  From those Quality interactions.
> 
> [Platt]
> I mean where did the system of Quality interactions come from? Did it 
> suddenly emerge from nothing?
> 
> [Arlo]
> It emerged from Quality interactions.
> 
> [Arlo had asked]
> Where did this consciousness come from?
> 
> [Platt]
> It is the precondition of such questions as "Where did it come from?"
> 
> [Arlo]
> Where did this precondition come from? Did the "design" of humans 
> reside in this "precondition" 100 trillion years ago?

Perhaps consciousness has no beginning and no end. I tend to think so. It is
what is.

> [Platt]
> Ah. So Consciousness is also pre-metaphor I presume.
> 
> [Arlo]
> "Consciousness" is an emergent property of social activity. Our 
> intellectualization of our "locus" as "consciousness" is metaphorical.
> 
> "Looking back on what we have discussed, you might think to yourself, 
> "These speculations about brain and mind are all well and good, but 
> what about the feelings involved in consciousness? These symbols may 
> trigger each other all they want, but unless someone perceives the 
> whole thing, there's no consciousness."
> 
> This makes sense to our intuition on some level, but it does not make 
> much sense logically. For we would then be compelled to look for an 
> explanation of the mechanism which does the perceiving of all the 
> active symbols, if it is not covered by what we have described so 
> far. Of course, a "soulist" would not have to look any further-he 
> would merely assert that the perceiver of all this neural action is 
> the soul, which cannot be described in physical terms, and that is 
> that. However, we shall try to give a "nonnsoulist" explanation of 
> where consciousness arises.
> 
> Our alternative to the soulist explanation-and a disconcerting one it 
> is, too-is to stop at the symbol level and say, "This is it-this is 
> what consciousness is. Consciousness is that property of a system 
> that arises whenever there exist symbols in the system which obey 
> triggering patterns somewhat like the ones described in the past 
> several sections." Put so starkly, this may seem inadequate. How does 
> it account for the sense of "I", the sense of self?" (From GEB, Hofstadter)

You seem to limit consciousness to humans. I don't. My cat, UTOE, exhibits
consciousness. Also like Pirsig, I attribute consciousness (experience)even
to atoms, only of a limited kind.  

> [Arlo previously]
> 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]
> But according to you there is no literalization. It's all metaphors. 
> Where have I gone wrong?
> 
> [Arlo]
> No, there is no literalization. The danger, in both cases (theistic 
> and atheistic) is in forgetting that. Horrors then pour in. No stopping that.

Horrors aren't literal? Sorry, I don't follow you. Where do you draw the line?

> For point of discussion, I think "literalization" has pragmatic value 
> (and this is why it happens at all). We learn to accept solidified 
> metaphor (literalization) in daily activity because it allows us to 
> move and act in ways that would otherwise be cumbersome. And so long 
> as it is remembered that one is doing this for pragmatic reasons, one 
> can generally do this without much problem. But the moment one 
> forgets this, the moment one believes that his/her metaphor is 
> "literally true", we descend into dogma (whether theistic or 
> atheistic) and it is never long thereafter that power and evil enter 
> the picture. Whether its Stalin executing theists, or the Pope 
> burning people at the stake, its always been the same.

"Eat to live" is both metaphor and literally true. How is that "dogma?""
 
> [Platt]
> Which raises an interesting question. How can I know that my 
> "enlightenment" leads to what you or others consider "ethical?"
> 
> [Arlo]
> Are you suggesting there is enlightened behavior that is unethical?

Dictators often claim to be more enlightened than the masses. We know
the ethical results of that!





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