[MD] The Beginning of it All

[Ham Priday]

Marsha --

Sorry for this delay in responding to your Saturday posts.  I had started to 
write a reply to your 4:14 PM message when we experienced a power failure 
that lasted the better part of the night.  (Could this have been an omen 
from on high? ;-)

You wrote:
> There is mundane morality.  "Man (She holds her nose as she writes
> the word.) is the measure of all things."  The MOQ has produced an
> intellectual structure on which to make moral decisions.   Ahh, but
> then there is Quality, the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum, the
> Tao, the ALL which cannot be undesirable and is perfect, good and
> moral as it is.  The mundane (good and bad) is also this Quality and
> is therefore perfect, good and moral.  Or as Dwai states, "... cannot
> possibly be undesirable."

What do you mean by "mundane morality"?  Selfish?  Worldly?  Ordinary?  All 
of these characterize human morality as I know it.  You say that the MOQ has 
"produced an intellectual structure" on which to make moral decisions.  Can 
you define this structure as a rule or principle of decision-making?  From 
what I've seen of these discussions, the idea is that Intellectual patterns 
must be allowed to conquer Social, Biological, and Inorganic patterns, but 
there is little agreement as to which level specific patterns belong to.

When Pirsig says "Some things are better than others", I assume he's 
referring to the mundane world of differentiated appearance.  I take it to 
mean that some things are more desirable than others, and that evil or 
immorality is undesirable.  But you define the "undifferentiated aesthetic 
continuum" as Quality, and say that the mundane (morality?) is "also this 
Quality and is therefore perfect, good and moral."  Am I missing something 
here?  How can an undifferentiated continuum contain goodness and badness, 
perfection and imperfection, and be both moral and immoral?

In a later note (5:21 PM) to Krimel, you said:
> I would think (arf!) desire on the mundane level is undesirable.

Pray tell me, Marsha, on what other level does desire operate?  Even 
Krimel's dog expresses her likes and dislikes as behavioral responses that 
we loosely call "desire" or "repugnance".

In Western logic, opposites do not equate.  You seem to be saying that not 
only is badness good but desire is undesirable!

As you see, I don't subscribe to the Buddhist idea that desire is the root 
of all evil.  Quite the contrary, what we desire expresses our sense of 
value and is the driving force of human progress.  Without desire, human 
beings would be devoid of feelings or motivation.  Unable to discriminate 
between good and bad, mankind would have no morality, and civilization would 
stagnate.

If there is an undifferentiated aesthetic continuum of Quality, it is not to 
be found in the mundane world of finite experience.

Regards,
Ham