[MD] Correctness and Usefulness

[Ham Priday]

Greetings Joe (and Marsha) --

On Tuesday 6 May 2008 2:22 PM, Joseph Maurer wrote:

> I realize, Ham, that there is no "evolution" in your vocabulary.
> However, as an act of courtesy you might acknowledge that
> the analogy of DQ/SQ is a metaphysical approach to reality
> in consciousness.  I won¹t find it laying beside the road,
> of course, but it may usher in a way of thinking that is not
> so bloody as our current political strife.

Evolution is not only in the vocabulary of MoQists, it is their fundamental 
reality.  Change, movement, development, progress, are all attributes of 
experienced reality.  When they move in a direction that is favorable to 
mankind, we call them "moral".  When they are unfavorable, we either ignore 
them or call them "bad" or, in Pirsig's analogy, "low-quality" events.

I accept evolution as the "law of natural selection" in biology and 
anthropology.  But the flow of historical events is not the focus of my 
philosophy.  Just as Pirsig has disqualified SOM as fundamental, my 
Philosophy of Essence is an attempt to transcend experiential existence.  In 
my opinion, we can't "usher in a way of thinking" that will eliminate 
violence and political strife by telling people they aren't moral enough, or 
that they haven't evolved to an intellectual level commensurate with Quality 
behavior.

If man is to become a moral creature, he must understand why he exists and 
what his role in existence is.  This has historically been the function of 
mythology, religion, philosophy, empiricism, humanism, and sociology.  But 
they haven't been effective because they've been imposed on society as 
"authority".  And while man can be coerced by authority to behave in certain 
ways, he will always resist such restriction on his freedom and find 
alternative ways to express it.

My approach is not to invent a new analogy but to get to the core values 
that drive mankind.  Some of these values are instinctually derived, like 
seeking a source of food, self-defense, and sexual satisfaction.  But 
experience presents an inexhaustible variety of value choices that we make 
every day, and they are all relative to our "being in the world".  Our 
choices can be arbitrary, selfish, or indifferent probablistic).  Or they 
can be based on our purpose as free agents of a primary source -- the moral 
axiom of 'rational self-directed value'.  That won't happen until mankind 
has a belief system that is not only in harmony with Nature but with the 
essential source.

Euphemisms, metaphors, analogies, and paradigms all have their place in 
philosophical discourse.  But they have little affect on the way we sense 
value.  Only understanding based on a metaphysical concept of reality can 
change our value perspective.  You may ask if such a perspective will be 
"for the better".  To which I'd reply rhetorically, if it enables man to 
value the life and freedom of others as he values his own, can it be less 
than better?

Essentially yours,
Ham