[MD] A transcendent moral order

[Ham Priday]

Hi Marsha --



> I agree with Platt.  Your last few posts in defence of Value and 
> presenting your insight into RMP's view were quite wonderful,
> and I was quite taken back at how much your view seemed to
> blend perfectly with the MoQ.  It could be that my view had broadened as 
> much as yours had changed.  Anyway, it made me happy.

Glad to have made you happy, Marsha.  But, as you must know, Essentialism as 
posited by Ham has always been a valuistic philosophy.  To avoid 
controversy, I have made some effort lately to reconcile my metaphysical 
worldview with that of Mr. Pirsig.  For example, I concede that Value is 
paramount in existence because it is man's link to the essential source. 
However, although our primary sense of value is undifferentiated, it is 
always experienced as relative rather than absolute.  It is relative to the 
observing subject and specific to the objective phenomenon experienced.

Anything that is abstracted and objectivized ("patterned") in a relational 
way cannot be Absolute Essence which contains no "otherness".  That is my 
major quarrel with Pirsig's "universal" DQ.  He implies that Quality is the 
source of reality, yet his description of it is limited to experiential 
existence, or at least to the quality patterns that represent the physical 
universe.

Another difference in our philosophies is the suggestion that Quality (DQ) 
evolves to "betterness".  If anything moves to betterness it is man and his 
value-sensibility.  The primary source of an evolving universe cannot itself 
evolve.  Essence is not only absolute and uncreated but immutable, and 
that's why the individual self can only partake of it valuistically.

Anyway, thanks for the nice words.

Essentially yours, as always,
Ham