[MD] -elitist ideas

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Kevin]
"fundamental theist issue"???  Where did this come from???

[Arlo]
A fundamental issue of theism, as dealt with Aquinas and others, has been how to
reconcile "evil" in the world while also proclaiming the "source" (GOD) to be
"pure good". It has been addressed in several forms and answers over the years.
The question, is Quality is "moral" and is the source of "all things", how does
"immorality" come into being is a restatement of this question.

[Kevin]
The ultimate source makes available the knowledge of good and evil. 

[Arlo]
I disagree. "Evil" comes into play only at the metaphysical level, which
involves social and intellectual patterns. An amoeba can recognize "good", and
hence value "worse/better" is an experiential word describing patterns at all
MOQ levels.

[Kevin]
Whether a thing is good or evil is a moral judgment requiring a moral framework.
 The Ten Commandments and the United States Code are examples of moral
frameworks.

[Arlo]
They are examples of SOCIAL moral patterns. Once we are on the
social/intellectual level, we can begin metaphysically demarking "evil" (in
social-culturally defined ways). An amoaba, a dolphin, my dog, Platt's cat, all
these recognize Quality ("betterness") on the biological level.

[Kevin]
"moral" connotes right and wrong, good and bad, responsible and irresponsible.
It's been my experience that the word is used more often and more comfortably
by those of the conservative persuasion.  Those of the liberal persuasion seem
to find its use troublesome.  Responsibility is another such word but one with
far less baggage.  Likewise, words like freedom and liberty find greater use by
those of the liberal persuasion.

[Arlo]
Like I said, "morality" is not my word of choice, precisely because of the
social connotations it invariably brings. But I think, as I said, Pirsig was
trying to rescue the word from its typically poor social-level association and
apply it to all levels (whether or not he succeeds, some question). For me, it
makes perfect sense to say "gravity is a inorganic moral pattern", or "gravity
is an inorganic value pattern", or "gravity is an inorganic quality pattern".
But using moral in this way means a significant (even more so than "value")
shift in common use. I suspect that this is really what's at the root of this
problem, Kevin. In most of your points the word "moral" is largely hinged with
its modern, popular use, and this may be why saying gravity is a moral pattern
is problematic. 

I think this is where Case is coming from as well, that "moral" should be
reserved for human social-intellectual value judgments, and not applied to
electrons, gravity, amoebas or dolphins. I ask this because, as I say, I am not
the biggest fan of the word "moral" (for reasons stated). If we switch the
central term in this discussion to "value", then see where and how we still
disagree, I think this would be more fruitful. I'll leave it up to Pirsig and
others to argue for using the word "moral" to describe gravity and amoebas.

[Arlo previously]
How can no-value derive from value. Pirsig may likely respond that a thing that
has no-value does not exist, and as such no-value does not derive from value,
for as soon as we point to something as an exemplar of no-value, it suddenly
has value. 

[Kevin]  
Right.  Any your pointing to it is your moral framework in action.

[Arlo]
But even an amoeba can recognize that its present location is "low value" and
moving is "better".

[Arlo previously]
In the same sense, there is no amorality, or a thing that is amoral does not
exist. Hence what we see around us are moral patterns, ranging from inorganic
to intellectual.

[Kevin] 
Ok.  Moral patterns connoting both good and bad.

[Arlo]
Here again switch the word to "value". "Value patterns connoting both good and
bad". Kind of a truism. High-value, low-value, better, worse, this is the
Quality moment, the cutting edge of experience for electrons, amoebas,
dolphins, and you and I.

[Kevin]
Yes it does.  I'm just not sure about restricting the metaphysical-experiential
difference to "immorality."  But I can see why you don't say morality is a
metaphysical word.

[Arlo]
I think Pirsig would say that "moral and amoral" (like value and no-value) are
experiential terms, although keeping in mind that amoral and no-value are
statements of non-existence. "Immorality" comes into play only at the social
level, because it is based on post-experiential symbolic representations OF
experience.

[Arlo previously]  
If I said, "The judgment of value or no-value (avalue?) is our doing", how would
we describe the amoeba's movement away from the acid? Certainly it is a value
judgment (although lacking in the latter post-experiential symbolic
representations). 

[Kevin]
No, not the judgment of value or no-value.  The judgment of how much value.
Think good, better, best.  Or bad, worse, worst.  These are moral judgments.

[Arlo]
The judgment of value or no-value is seen by response. Since the amoeba
experiences the acid, it has value for the amoeba. If I placed the acid in
another room, instead of next to the amoeba, this would be an indication that
the acid had no-value for the amoeba, since from the amoeba's perspective the
acid does not exist.

Of course, the experiencing is Quality, and certainly ranges from "worse-better"
or "lower quality-higher quality". Yes, I would say this is a "moral judgment",
but again this is the same as saying this is a "value judgment". The amoeba
moves because its experience is "bad" and it moves towards "something better".
Although the amoeba certainly lacks the ability to say it using world-symbols,
Platt's statement of "its better here" is a good description of what the amoeba
would be thinking if it could think.

[Arlo previously]
My understanding of Pirsig would say that "man" constructs value for himself
through his inorganic, biological, social and intellectual engagements, but
that this does not mean that only "man" perceives value. My dog constructs
value for herself as well, but through an experiential frame that lacks the
sophisticated symbolic repertoire of our social-intellectual experience.

[Kevin] 
I'm sure this is why I don't engage those kinds of conversations.  They make no
sense to me.

[Arlo]
Sorry, Kevin. My point was that "man" constructs value out of experience that
includes all the MOQ levels (inorganic to intellectual), while an amoeba
constructs value out of experience limited to very unsophisticated (compared to
dolphins) biological patterns. 

For example, a dolphin may learn to fear and avoid fishing boats after a
low-quality experience with one. But try as you might, you'll never get that
amoeba to move away from a picture of acid (it lacks the biological complexity
necessary to process that). (This may also indicate some form of
post-experience symbol use by dolphins, one reason I disagree with Pirsig that
only man transcends the biological level.)