From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Sun Sep 11 2005 - 22:21:56 BST
Hi Dave --
> Everything is the way it is today because everything in the past
> happened the way it happened.
>
> What does that mean? It means there's no purpose, no goal, no
> creator. Our reality today is solely based on the past. Everything
> that happened in the past contributed to what is now. If something
> would've happened differently, "now" would be different. Humans and
> their consciousness are not here because they where purposefully
> designed to be here, but it so happened that things played out as
> they did. Evolution is not moved forward by some supernatural
> patterns, but things simply happen and for one reason or another one
> species survives and another doesn't. No good, no bad, no goal, no
> purpose.
Here comes the "Philosophy of Happenstance". We just "happen to be here" --
no particular reason, no particular purpose -- we're simply a cosmic
happenstance.
I was hoping to be able to declare: Case closed. But that doesn't appear to
be the Case. As if he wasn't enough, I now have to contend with an avowed
nihilist!
My first inclination was to ignore your proclamation. Just let it lie there
and stew. But curiosity got the better of me.
How can one subscribe to a philosophy based on Quality and Value, yet not
believe in them? Even more curious: How can one live contentedly in the
world and not recognize its value? Hellen Keller was deeply aware of the
value of life, although she could neither see nor hear. Conceivably, this
handicap was an advantage. By avoiding the distractions of the external
world, she might have been better able to appreciate the proprietary nature
of her awareness -- something that you, Case, and Arlo seem incapable of
understanding. I see yours as the greater handicap.
Now I know that you have likes and dislikes in that nihilistic world of
yours. You might even recognize beauty when you see it, though I doubt that
you could give me a moralistic definition of what "goodness" and "badness"
are. "Utility" and "uselessness" probably come close -- providing, of
course, that you recognize "purpose" at all.
Well, I don't know what Mr. Pirsig would call them, but "likes", "dislikes",
"beauty", "goodness" and "badness" are all subjective responses to the value
we experience in existence. Like joy, pain, sorrow, desire, love, and awe,
they enrich our lives by "coloring" our awareness with meanings that we
alone can know. Even a self-confessed nihilist has such feelings
and is free to build his life around them. That, my friend, is what's known
as "purpose".
Now, while you're content with taking all these assets for granted,
attributing them to an "accident of nature", some of us think it reasonable
to assume that a higher purpose than the pursuit of selfishness makes it all
possible. If the human intellect has the capacity to reason its way to a
cosmic teleology, is it any less reasonable to believe that the intellect
was "designed" to do that than to argue against such a belief?
And do you argue against it from personal belief, or because in our
"enlightened age" of antitheistic sophistication it's the politically
correct thing to do?
(You don't have to answer. I'll understand if you feel it would impugn your
personal integrity.)
Regards,
Ham
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