[MD] The case for an Uncreated Source

[Ham Priday]

On 8/4/09 4:12 PM, Joseph Maurer wrote to Willblake2 and all:


> Imho the strength of directional evolution is "morality!"
> Pirsig saw that when the individual is clearly examined, DQ,
> undefined evolution, is a necessary descriptive element for
> understanding.  We do not hesitate to judge people.  SOM
> cannot make that judgment since in a statement of SOM the
> S is undefined, and there is no personal hierarchy save religion
> for morality, only social morality.   Morality other than law
> is DQ individual morality, evolution.   Society has murdered
> the wrong people in some cases.  In our times War is the
> proper social adjustment to anarchy.

Did you mean to say that "the direction of evolution is morality"?  If 
that's what you meant, and it seems to be what Pirsig is saying, then you 
have a different concept of morality than I do.  For me, morality requires 
human judgment.  It's society's convention for acceptable behavior based on 
the value-sensibility of its individual members.  Without a sensible agent, 
there would be no realization of morality or value.

Actually, you make my point in the rest of your paragraph.  You say that "we 
do not hesitate to judge people", which admits that human beings have the 
capacity to evaluate, and that morality is THEIR judgment call, not DQ's or 
the Universe's.  You say that SOM cannot make that judgment since S is 
undefined and only religion (i.e., society) can determine what is moral. 
Yet you imply that there is something innate in man (at least in the 
collective sense) which is the basis for his moral judgments.  Now that's 
interesting, because it expresses exactly what Peter Williams suggested in 
his "aesthetic arguments for God" with which I introduced this thread.

Compare these excerpts with what you've stated above:

"There is objective beauty in books and music, but these things also stir 
within us a desire for a beauty greater than themselves which we seem to 
apprehend _through_ their beauty.  It is as if their finite beauty is a 
derived quality that draws our aesthetic attention into the heaven of 
underived and absolute beauty.  On the theistic view of things, this `as if' 
finds its fulfillment."

"Lewis was impressed by Rudolph Otto's book The Idea of the Holy, in which 
`the Numinous' is described as that which causes in those who perceive it a 
sense of awe.  This sense of awe is not the fear that would be caused by 
believing a fierce animal was in the room with you, nor the supernatural 
dread of believing a ghost to be nearby, but the feeling of awe one might 
have if one simply believed that `a great spirit' were present.  The 
Numinous is not the subjective experience, but the transcendent object about 
which one feels this sense of awe.  The principle of credulity (that we 
should trust first impressions until given reason for doubt) encourages us 
to take the straightforward interpretation of such experience that the 
Numinous is an objective reality truly perceived."

Williams is paraphrasing C.S. Lewis to demonstrate that "the feeling of 
awe", Numinous or the sense of beauty, is a "first impression" (Pirsig's 
"pre-intellectual experience"?) of Value that WE (as the sensible agents) 
"should trust until given reason for doubt."  Note that he doesn't refer to 
a "universal" or "existential" value but rather, as you say, that moral 
value is a "judgment" or interpretation of the individual subject.

Logically, then, if evolution is thought to move in a moral direction, it 
can only be because man SENSES it as moral.  In other words, the ideal model 
for Morality or Beauty is not an existent, does not reside in the physical 
universe, but is derived from the Value of the uncreated source and is 
represented experientially as what we desire or find awe-inspiring.

> I can be sentenced to death for my actions.  If there were no DQ
> we could know nothing about an individual¹s sense of responsibility.
> I know you don¹t like ³individuals² they are too dynamic!  For morality
> there has to be an acceptance of undefined evolution.
> AN INQUIRY INTO MORALS!

Perhaps if there were no DQ individuals wouldn't be around to know anything! 
Quality must be realized in order to have any value.  And that, as I keep 
repeating, requires a sensible agent.  You and I may value something as 
good, beautiful, or moral.  The universe doesn't, nature doesn't, nor does 
Quality.

It's too bad Mr. Pirsig chose not to define his DQ, as it remains a 
continuing source of confusion.  The acronym suggests "dynamic", yet as a 
primary source it is undifferentiated and immutable.  Quality is posited as 
a self-sustained and independent realm, yet the word is commonly understood 
as a measure of goodness or excellence, and "man is the measure of all 
things."   In my opinion, the proper term for what we're talking about is 
"value sensibility", which is the psychic core of man's existence.

Thanks, Joe.  I suspect we'd be on the same page if it were not for the MOQ 
hierarchy.

-- Ham

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Joe

> The trouble with the evolutionary lens, is that it is one-sided.
> Evolution proposes growth through change (perhaps directional),
> on an unchanging backdrop. With our short lives this is imaginable since
> we do not experience the ever changing non-biological universe.
> However, that backdrop is forever changing. Since it appears
> that everything changes, the basic forces (gravity) are also "evolving", 
> and
> indeed time is also changing. Biology changes in time to the changes
> of the planet, which changes in time to the changing forces, which change
> in time to time. All this change is simply an endless dance, and what
> a waltz it is.
>
> This is probably not clear, but it's the dilemma I see. Once one
> becomes aware of the ever changing of everything, the idea
> of a beginning kind of loses its importance. Rather than directional
> evolution, I find it more satisfying to view it all as endless
> transformation.