[MD] Quality and Chaos

[John Carl]

dmb, Krimel,

Well I agree with dave completely on this one.  Quality = Chaos seems the
most ridiculous formulation I can imagine.  It is the essence of what I've
termed, the Moronist position - the Metaphysics of Randomness makes as
little sense to me today as when I first heard it.

Shit happens, indeed.  But the fact that it is "shit",  is a matter of
value.  Chaos is  a valueless entity.

Since you share mine and hunter's fondness for the odd apt scriptural quote,
Krimel:


   Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for
light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for
bitter!

Isaiah 5:20


John


> dmb says:
>
> I was trying to be polite, but since you asked twice I'll tell pay it some
> attention.
>
> It seems to me that the whole thing revolves around the notion that
> "Quality is Chaos". If that part of your picture is undermined everything
> else falls with it, more or less. We all know that shit happens. I'll
> certainly go along with you there. But if Quality is not Chaos, and it's
> definitely not, then the whole thing folds like a cheap card table, which it
> is.
>







> There are many pieces of evidence to choose from but I like the passages
> from the end of his second book, in this case chapter 30:
>
> "One of Phaedrus' old school texts ..contained a good summary: 'RTA, which
> etymologically stands for 'course' originally meant 'cosmic order', the
> maintenance of which was the purpose of all the gods; and later it also came
> to mean 'right' so that the gods were conceived as preserving the world not
> merely from physical disorder but also from moral chaos. The one idea is
> implicit in the other; and there is order in the universe because its
> control is in righteous hands.'The physical order of the universe is also
> the moral order of the universe. Rta is both. This is exactly what the MOQ
> was claiming. it was not a new idea. It was the oldest idea known to
> man.This identification of RTA and ARETE was enormously valuable, Phaedrus
> thought, because it provided a huge historical panorama in which the
> fundamental conflict between static and Dynamic Quality had been worked
> out."
>
> "Dharma, like rta, means 'what holds together'. It is the basis of all
> order. It equals righteousness. It is the ethical code. It is the stable
> condition which gives man perfect satisfaction. Dharma is duty. It is not
> external duty which is arbitrarily imposed by others. It is not any
> artificial set of conventions which can be repealed by legislation. Neither
> is it internal duty which is arbitrarily decided by one's own conscience.
> Dharma is beyond all questions of what is internal and what is external.
> Dharma is Quality itself, the principle of 'rightness' which gives structure
> and purpose to the evolution of all life and to the evolving understanding
> of the universe which life created."
>
>
> First of all, this strikes me as a very beautiful and very powerful summary
> of the MOQ. But it the point is to refute the notion that "Quality is
> Chaos". If it Quality itself is "the basis of all order" and "the principle
> of rightness which gives structure and purpose to all life" then Quality is
> the exact opposite of chaos. That would mean you were about as wrong as it's
> possible to be - and this error is about nothing less than the MOQ's central
> term.
>
> What was that thing you were saying about elephants and gnats? Compared to
> the epic nature of this blunder, elephants would look like gnats. Yep, you
> practically gotta get in hot air balloon if you want to see the whole thing
> at once. It's visible from space.
>
>
> Just kidding.
>
> But it is pretty bad.
>
>
>
>
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