Platt Holden (pholden@worldnet.att.net)
Sun, 18 Jan 1998 08:01:04 +0100
Hi Hugo, Diana and LS:
Hugo wrote:
> >8. Dependency.
> >When a higher level attempts to assert its moral dominance over a lower
> >level, it must be careful that it does not endanger the stability of the
> >lower level on which it ultimately depends for survival.
>
> This could perhaps be formed as a rule, I dont like the 'must be careful'
> form; something like:
> A higher level can only dominate a lower level in so far as it does not
> endanger ...
I agree with Diana that Hugo's version is better.
Hugo continued:.
>
> >11. Proof.
> >It is impossible to refute that Quality is reality without asserting a
> >value.
>
> I do not much like the 'proof' idea. Any internally consistent system can
> provide such proofs (though not all proofs - Goedel), this is the
strenght
> of the extreme 'subjectivcism' - solipsism, for instance, but that does
not
> tell us anything on the practical usefulness of the system. I think the
> idea of a proof of MoQ goes against what MoQ is about.
Pirsig says: (Lila, Chap. 12)
"So what Phaedrus was saying was that not just life, but everything is an
ethical activity."
This means that Goedel's proof was an ethical activity, a moral value. Once
a truth (like Goedel's Theorem) is asserted it implicitly demands to
possess value, i.e. to be taken seriously. Thus, the existence of a general
value is acknowledged from the start.
Pirsig confirms the existence of a general value in Lila, Chap.8:
"'Truth is a species of good.' That was right on. That is exactly what is
meant by the Metaphysics of Quality. Truth is a static intellectual pattern
within the larger entity called Quality."
This larger entity, this general value, this undefinable separate category
of Quality, this high abstraction that (As Doug pointed out) we
simultaneously know and don't know rises above and swallows all SOM proofs,
truths, internally consistent systems, solipsisms -- everything including
whatever you or I or Goedel or Pirsig SOM say.
The principle, "It is impossible to refute that Quality is reality without
asserting a value" captures this fundamental aspect of the MoQ in a
nutshell. Anyone who denies that reality is Quality, and that includes
nearly everyone, saws off the limb on which he is perched.
Platt
Catch 25: To be you is to be different from everything else. But you are
nothing apart from everything else.
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