[MD] -elitist ideas

[Case]

[Platt]
Actually the inorganic level is fairly sloppy as it is with many
interpretations of quantum weirdness being bandied about.

[Case]
True enough but calling gravity moral and interjecting "values" that are not
quantities into physics only makes it sloppier. In fact we have been doing
much "better" since we ditched that baggage.

[Platt]
I love they way you make such definitive statements about "what's out there
in the future," as if you know. Of course, I assume you consider your belief
about there being no future betterness waving to us is a better belief than
its opposite. 

[Case]
I suppose the difference is not so much that I know what is out there as
that I know what isn't. That is to say that nothing in my past experience or
in anything I have read regarding the past suggests a hint of teleology.
While I remain open to some other possibility, you certainly have not been a
sunbeam.
 
[Platt]
You belie your objection to betterness by the very beliefs you express which
I presume you consider much, much better than the alternatives since you
express them with such certainty. Anyway, even my cat, like a bacterium,
knows when "It's better here than there." And for all we know, so does and
electron. 

[Case]
My statements are my statements. I represent them as nothing more or nothing
less. I know what I think is better for me and mine. Personally, I think the
fact that you are willing to ascribe not just value but value judgments and
sentience to single celled organisms and electrons is clear evidence that
Pirsig overestimated his audience's powers of discernment.