Bo, Carmen, Robert, Roger and company-
Good morning!
Thanks all for your kind feedback and welcome messages. They were very much
appreciated. I am mainly going to reply to Bo with regard to the
"righteous" topic. Iıll keep my "free will" replies very short here since
that part of my post was on the topical borderline. I might respond to them
on MoQ-Discuss if that is acceptable.
On 6/11/99 at 10:22 PM +0000, B. Skutvik wrote:
> It's not only a question of doing wrong against one's intellectual
> knowledge, but against one's "intuition" (quality perception). We may
> sin socially (as Rob confesses) and we may not follow our own
> preachings (Phĉdrus), but we never ever go against our
> total value range; what we sense, feel and know is right or wrong.
Hmmm. Iım not sure what you mean by "total value range." Do you mean that
within any total value range, there will be values that support any action,
even contradictory actions? Or do you mean that we can never go against
what is right when we look at the totality of our values ranked
appropriately?
I think we can go against what is right (in its totality) by focusing on
one level or one code between levels. I agree that we never pick an outcome
that we do not value within at least one such focus. This makes sense right
off the bat because the levels are often in opposition to one another. Good
for the social level is not often good for the biological level. If you
look at biological, it is ok to yawn. If you look at the social, it is not.
It is almost as if you can always find a level that will agree with
whatever you wish to do. Such is the art of justification.
So, for me, the problem comes in when we fail to look at the totality of
our value system and instead focus on one part. I would propose that, at
least in terms of the MoQ, "righteous" is to look at the totality of known
values. I agree that it is very hard, if not outright impossible, to pick a
wrong that is not supported by at least one narrow focus. That could be why
cultural relativism is so popular. Well, cultural relativism is popular in
some cultures and not others really...which sort of proves its point.
Anyway, Iıll stick with my NO answer then. You can learn about right and
wrong (levels and codes of the MoQ), but still pick the wrong in totality
simply by narrowing your focus. You could say that Phaedrus focused on the
biological (hunger) and social (eating meat is encouraged in the US, Lila
cooked for him and he wants to be polite) and ignored the totality of his
known values (eating meat is wrong except under extreme circumstances such
as famine). This makes what he did biologically right, socially right, but
not MoQ righteous.
A short thought on Dynamic Quality and righteousness. When you know right
from wrong, you probably cannot include Dynamic Quality. It is the unknown,
the unexperienced experience. I think that you might only be able to be
"righteous" with respect to known Static Quality.
On 6/12/99 at 12:43 AM -0300, Carmen Flynn wrote:
> I don't know if this makes any sense, but while I have the two
> quotes from Roger and Mark, something tell me that we all here at the LS
> seem to think that a Dynamic choice is always a better choice than the
> static choice. Free will and the most Dynamic choice is not always the best
> course to take, if, in the process we are 'destroying a lower value
> pattern'.
I agree. When I equated total free will with pure Dynamic Quality, I did
not mean to imply that pure free will is a good thing. Without Static
Quality, we would end up with chaos. Pirsig says this well on page 170 of
the teal version of Lila (second to last paragraph of chapter 11). I wonıt
quote it here, better to keep this post as short as possible.
On 6/11/99 at 3:14 AM -0400, Robert Stillwell wrote:
> I would, however, like to nitpick one fundamental point...
I was in the middle of drafting a reply, but upon reading Bo's note, Iım
not sure that the LS is the right place to post it. In any event, it is
not quite complete. Would you mind if I wrote to you privately or to
MoQ-Discuss instead?
On 6/10/99 at 10:14 PM -0400, RISKYBIZ9@aol.com wrote:
> In brief, I think the Free Will is an SOM platypus because it is an
> oxymoron. It combines a term "Will", which is that which you value or
> desire, with "Freedom", which implies an absence of influence.
I thought freedom implied an absence of external control, not an absence of
influence whether internal or external. To me, the term traditionally means
the ability to exert your desires (will, values) over those of others for
you ("others" includes primarily God or Science or Church or State).
I donıt know that this platypus matters to the MoQ much, though. For the
MoQ, free will should simply become the ability to make choices and every
thing has it to the extent that it is dynamic. This translates well into
the above SOM definition. When you make intellectual choices or act on DQ
instead of following the set static patterns of society (God or Science or
Church or State), you are showing free will.
Iım going to have to respond to the rest of your post elsewhere. I hope
that you do not mind.
Cheers,
Mark
________________________________________________________________________
Mark Brooks <mark@epiphanous.org> <http://www.epiphanous.org/>
How do you know who wrote this? <http://www.epiphanous.org/mark/pgp/>
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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