[MD] The SOM/MOQ discrepancy.

[Andre Broersen]

Ham to Platt:

Until Pirsig acknowledges Value and Morality as relational perceptions of
the human being rather than a universal principle, I shall remain
unattached.

Andre:

Hope you don't mind me jumping in here, I have been following Ham's
argumentation since I joined MoQ discuss...which isn't all that long I must
admit and grant you this Ham...but (and Platt, I do not wish to undermine
your attempts at persuasion nor do I wish to question your abilities and
dedication, you can do very well without me but I am also part of all this).
Ham: you are like a (re-inforced) brick SOM wall ( your SOM cultural immune
system is thicker than the Chinese one!!), a typical example of one who
simply does not want to be persuaded or even willing to taste.Even stronger,
you simply want to push your Essentialist barrel...but we are all seekers of
quality here and are in the process of attempting to put it in a way where
we agree on principles and interpretations with a very healthy regard for
'alternative' views, presentation of 'new' insights and shaking our own
static patterns...no matter at what 'level' they are.

My hunch is (and anyone unconvinced of another's conviction starts picking
on details) that you are stuck in SOM 'level' thinking vs MoQ 'level'
thinking. Read 'Lila' p334:'...the empirical experience is not an experience
of 'objects'. It is an experience of *value patterns* *produced by a number
of sources, not just inorganic patterns*.This simply means that you have to
go outside the levels to comprehend and work/play/interact!!! with them. The
same applies to the other 'levels'. That is why I have always expressed a
difficulty with the designation 'levels'. Yes, they are discrete but they
intertwine/ complement contradict / support and undermine eachother.


Value=Morality(!!!) and 'relational perceptions of the human being have
nothing to do with this. You are placing the human being outside of this
'universal principle' but we, human beings, ARE the living, static/dynamic
patterns of Value and Morality (both high and low) within a universal
"principle'.
Why are we here, now? Because we are evolution's most free (i.e. BETTER)
 expression and realisation of inorganic and organic values. It seems to me
that the only evolutionary step thus far taken is that step that keeps us
where we are at the moment, and it appears to be a restrictive one ...SOM
dominated intellectual PoV's.

Ham, your 'Essential' has nothing essential about it. It just is... ! Why
Quality? Because it is better, more elegant and more harmonious. Remember
that it is not the first choice, many mutations have gone before, many have
failed, many survived (and that is what we see around us, and feel and taste
and whatever you like... because they are better...) and do not think for
one minute that his process has stopped since 'our' arrival. It is a
continuing process. We just happend to become part of this
merry-go-round..whether we like it, or make sense of it, or not.

I do think,Ham, I cannot persuade you...at least I have tried. But will...no
more.

And, by the way, when you are led to understand that:'"... slavery,
oppression, terror, and genocide, which express the freedom of tyrants to
subdue their subjects, are "not for real"? Or that genetic mutations which
cause cancer and anatomical malformations, defeating the "betterness"
principle, are to be ignored in a moral universe?

Remember Phaedrus' 'final' question to the professor at Benares University
about reality of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

For what it isn't worth.(I do not mean to be very unkind Ham, just a
little).
Andre