[MD] Fw: The Quality of Free Will

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, John --


> Nihilism is for Nincompoops!  'nother good one.  they're just
> raining down in MD today.  Thanks Ham.

Thanks, John, and you're most welcome.  Now if only I could persuade you 
that your worldview is nihilistic, we might be getting somewhere.

[Ham, previously]:
> As you must be aware by now, I have problems with much of the
> MOQ terminology.

[John]:
> Yes!  Or mine.  Or Royce or James or anybody I've met.
> You seem to be pretty stuck in your own terms.  Hmmm...
> wonder if that's any sort of problem?

If "stuck in my own terms" means that I am expressing my convictions as best 
I can, you are right.
The way I see it, this is a problem for you, not me.

[Ham]:
> The author's metaphors and euphemisms don't help me understand
> Pirsig's reality any more than my own.

[John]:
> that's because, Ham, you have to step outside of your own reality in order
> to get perspective on it.  You can't understand your own reality, unless 
> you
> view it from somebody else's.  And it seems to me that you're trying to do
> it the other way around, understand your own reality first, and then use
> that to analyze the other's.  Won't work.  Fundamentally problematic, is 
> my
> opinion.

Well, then I suppose I'm looking to you folks for the perspective you say I 
need -- not to "understand my reality" (for I already do), but to understand 
the common objections raised against it.  There would be no point in 
argument and persuasion if I had no reality of my own to impart to others. 
Unfortunately, the "others" tend to be intractably biased in a Pirsigian 
direction, and I am viewed as a renegade, which is why such dialogue doesn't 
work here.  This needn't be "fundamentally problematic", however; and it 
isn't when people are open to alternative views.  I see you as potentially 
such a person, John, along with Mark and Joe.

> But sometimes you can catch glimpses of a transcendant harmony
> coming from different terms and "realities".  Since there is that which is
> common to the other, we assume this as some sort of "super-reality"
> or truer picture, and I believe that is the best analogy for DQ as I can
> come up with right now.

Yes, it's the common chord I guess we're all striving for.  Finding such 
harmony of thought is a rarity on the MD, but I do spot it occasionally and 
it does broaden my perspective.  I think we should exercise caution where 
such consensus is found, however, lest we be deceived by our own exhubrance 
as to the Truth it reveals.

[Ham, responding to Marsha]:
> But what does it gain us intellectually to simply call existence a 
> "convention"?

[John]:
> It frees us to realize we are making a choice.  There is not any "truth"
> that is thrust upon us and forced down our throats, because in the end 
> they
> are all conventions, and thus, all choices.  Intellectually, that is very,
> very freeing because it opens up the boundaries to thought and inquiry
> infinitely.

Here I disagree.  No one is--or should be--thrusting a truth or principle 
down our throat.  But "conventionality" is even more sinister.  For it 
implies that nothing is real or true, that we live in a fantasy world of our 
own making.  This is the nihilistic "cloud of unreality" that I alluded to 
before, and it hangs over the MoQ like flies over a cadaver.

> Nihilism is absurd.  Undoubtedly.  But there is a big difference between
> nothing and infinity Ham.  A pluralisim of conventions is the opposite of 
> no
> convention.   We conceptualize infinity through a pluralism of numbers, so
> too do we conceptualize an indefinable harmony that we strive for, without
> being able to pin any particular conventional viewpoint as THEE one. And
> yeah, the fact that this viewpoint I offer you isn't THEE viewpoint either
> could be viewed as a problem.  But... I hope you understand why I think
> (from my viewpoint) that it isn't.

"Infinity" is a numerical symbol of absolute magnitude, and "nothing" is its 
antithesis.  So, of course, all difference lies between them.  These are 
conventions (euphemisms) by which we humans acknowledge the ineffable or 
indefinable aspects of our reality.  But they are not Reality itself; in 
fact, neither Infinity nor Nothingness exists.
The notion that Quality alone is real is Pirsig's "convention".  And whether 
we call it Virtue, Goodness, or Arête, it's as much of a myth as anything 
concocted by the supernaturalists.  Value is the affinity of the free agent 
for its Source.  Without a fundamental source there can be no sensible 
agent, let alone the realization of Value.

This is the premise of Essentialism, John.  And, as much as I'd like to 
accommodate it to Qualityism, the fact that Quality is not a primary source 
makes this a logical impossibility.  That's the dilemma I confront in this 
forum.  The "problem" I have with the MoQ is indeed "fundamental"; it is the 
fundament that Quality lacks.

"What do I see when I turn on the lights?
I can tell you, but you don't believe me"

Essentially speaking,
Ham