[MD] The question WHY?

[Ham Priday]

G'day John --

> As valuing agents reality is formed from what
> we prefer, isn't that the essence of the MoQ?

It may be the "morality" of the MoQ but, if so, it's incomplete.  For if 
reality represented only "what we prefer", it would be a Utopia.  Clearly 
this isn't the case.  Floods, famines, disease, and physical abnormality, 
not to mention human cruelty and violence, must be accounted for as part of 
our reality.  Existence is a self-perpetuating system, but it is not driven 
by morality.  We inhabit an amoral universe.  Distinguishing the good and 
the beautiful from the evil and the unseemly is man's yardstick.  This is 
the human role in existence that Pirsig doesn't seem to understand or 
appreciate.  Man is the measure of all things: It is HE who has the freedom 
to choose from the full spectrum of moral values that what pleases him. 
Value-sensibility together with reason affords man the unique power to 
discriminate and the freedom to act accordingly.

[Quoting Royce]:
> "If every reality has to exist just in so far as there is experience of 
> its
> existence, then the determination of the world of experience to be this
> world and no other, the fact that reality contains no other facts than
> these, is, as the supposed final reality, itself the object of one
> experience, for which the fragmentariness of the finite world appear
> as a presented and absolute fact, beyond which no reality is to be
> viewed as even genuinely possible.  For this final experience, the
> conception of any possible experience beyond is known as an
> ungrounded conception, as an actual impossibility.  But so, this final
> experience is by hypothesis forthwith defined as One, as all inclusive,
> as determined by nothing beyond itself, as assured of the complete
> fulfillment of its own ideas concerning what is,-- in brief, it becomes
> as absolute experience.  The very effort to deny an absolute experience
> involves, then, the actual assertion of such an absolute experience."
>
> Ok the best way to sum this up, I think, is that when you say "there are
> no absolutes" is itself an absolute.  I think Platt said that to Marsha
> already, so no great insight, but a bit deeper explication by JR, and
> tying the absolute to experience.  "Absolute Experience" seems to me
> to be an adequate meeting point between you and Platt.  You with
> your essence, him with his experience.

The statement that "there are no absolutes" is an assertion which, if true, 
is also an absolute fact.  However, simply saying it does not make it true; 
it only states a position.  Royce's absolutist position on experience 
reminds me of the BBC comedy "Are you being served?" in which the matronly 
Mrs. Slocombe used to say, "I am UNANIMOUS in that!"

As to my establishing a common ground with Platt, this will be difficult 
because he has bought into the idea that atoms, molecules, billiard balls --  
indeed anything that moves -- is experiencing preferences, that the universe 
itself has chosen "betterness" as its evolutionary goal.  (How can 
Pirsigians with all their intellectual sophistication scorn any theory that 
smacks of theism, yet cling to the ancient myth of Animism?)

> What I meant by the statement of "unconscious metaphysics tend to be bad" 
> is
> the problem which stems from absolute relativism is that the self is then
> taken as the absolute basis of being - which you point out below as being 
> a
> problem.

I'm not sure what you mean by "unconscious metaphysics," unless you feel 
that the author is unconscious.  Possibly you meant to say "intuitive" or 
"inductive" as opposed to empirically-based metaphysics.  But, you see, once 
you speculate beyond the realm of relational existence, you are forced to 
rely on your intuition.
And, as I've said numerous times, the human mind does not have access to 
absolute truth.  Therefore, it goes without saying that metaphysical 
conclusions can only be based on hypothetical theories.

> The relation of the Absolute Experience and the Individual Experience
> is also unpacked in Royce's writing, but we'll stick to one thing at a 
> time.
> I did find an interesting bit in my skimming this morning about the 
> relation
> of dynamic and static within the Absolute that seemed very Pirsigian to 
> me.
>
> So many thoughts!  So little time.

Yes, but one good thought can change your whole perspective on Reality. 
Isn't this what we're all really looking for?

Essentially yours,
Ham