From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon May 19 2003 - 07:21:04 BST
Hi Platt,
>Art is an experience. Like reality, it has no meaning beyond its own
>presence. ("Meaning" depends on intellect which is secondary to
>experience.) What is the meaning of a rose? A sunset? A sonata?
What I meant by meaning was really the context that has to be there in
advance. Not the secondary intellectual meaning. So the meaning of a rose
would be all the biological and inorganic patterns that make up a rose, and
which couldn't mean anything other than a rose. A sunset's meaning is the
earth turning away from the sun. They are both beautiful and all that art
stuff, but they are different from each other because of those static
patterns. I'm simply saying that a sunset can't grow on a rose bush. That
without the static patterns carrying forward into the future, there'd be no
difference between them.
> > I'm not talking about reflecting on it afterwards, I'm talking
> > about being able to feel the heat of the stove as a bad experience. I
>say
> > without the static patterns of burns and pain and hot stoves stored deep
>in
> > the patterns of morality, it wouldn't hurt, it would have no meaning.
> > There'd be no hot stove, and no one sitting on it.
>
>Static patterns left in the wake of DQ are indeed necessary for you and I
>to be here to experience anything. But do not restrict experience to
>what we're capable of. As pointed out by many here, the MoQ posits
>that experience occurs all the way down the line to atoms themselves.
>The world is a world of experience.
I agree. I'm just trying to get you to admit that the present and future is
dependent on the past. That experience is dependent on what has been
experienced before.
...
>I agree with everything you say except patterns "can't help but change"
>by simply interacting with other patterns. This is evolution by "oops" or
>lucky accident that the MoQ rejects in favor of evolution by responses to
>betterness.
Great, that's good. I felt I was taking a step in your direction. So, we
agree that the future and past are connected. And I agree about betterness,
I don't believe in oops either: Patterns are all moral patterns, and try to
do what they should. They are a self-abiding disposition to do what ever it
is that pattern is expected to do, and doing what is expected is good,
that's why they try to do it. Being moral is good. But sometimes they
can't do what they should, because other patterns may have gotten in the
way, or maybe constituent patterns were hampered. Whenever anything
unexpected (bad) ever happens, its cause can always be traced to something
doing what it is expected to do (good). Yes, unexpected things can
certainly be good in that we are happy they happened for our own
intellectual reasons, and there can be things the we expect to happen that
no one would call good, but I am talking about the ontological good, the
good that all patterns value and brings us into the future.
> > This has all been a long way of saying again that experience is of
>static
> > patterns of morality (even "mystical" experience, which is why mystical
> > experiences are recognized as mystical experiences and aren't completely
> > different from each other).
>
>"Dynamic quality," because it's a word phrase, is a static pattern. But
>the phenomenon it points to is an inexplicable, intuitive presence, or so
>I would argue.
Inexplicable only because we'll never know if have all the data to fully
explain anything. And intuitive beacuse there's more to our understanding
and experience than we think.
> > I knew you'd say that. What you are rejecting is your responsibility
>for
> > how your actions affect other people. Morality determines your actions,
> > and your actions, in turn, effect morality and other people. Believe it
>or
> > not, when you choose to wiggle your finger, you have to.
>
>I don't believe it. But, that's OK. To you, the fact that "all is
>determined"
>is a good truth in the art gallery of intellectual patterns. To me, free
>will
>is a much better painting in the same gallery. I guess we have to leave it
>at that. Or, perhaps we can agree on Pirsig's solution:
>
>"To the extent that one's behavior is controlled by static patterns of
>quality it is without choice. But to the extent that one follows Dynamic
>Quality, which is undefinable, one's behavior is free."(12)
>
>Platt
There's a huge moral issue here though Platt, so though you are free to move
on if that's your will, I'm not content to leave it as an inconsequential
matter of opinion: free will means that we aren't connected to each other,
and that we exist outside of history and don't affect it, or what other
people do. They have "free will" and do what they want. But our actions,
in our doing them, affect morality, which affects what other people want and
do. I noticed in another post you expressed the opinion that with out an
assumption of free will, no one can be held responsible for anything. But
it's exactly the opposite, the doctrine of free will is what destroys
responsibility, because it absolves ourselves of the responsibility for
affecting morality and other people's actions. The undeniable fact that
morality made us everything we are can't absolve us of responsibility for
doing the things we do, because all patterns are responsible for doing the
things they do, whatever their adversity. Reward, respect, punishment, etc,
are all essential motivators of our actions, social patterns of morality
that affect the future as much as they reflect on the past.
The Pirsig quote is true enough, but equating free will to the great cloud
of indefinability and mystery isn't a very deep exploration into the
subject, it kind of ducks the question.
Johnny
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