Hello everyone
Richard Budd wrote:
>
> Hey Dan,
>
> You Wrote:
> "...following Struan's "right on
> > the money" argument a one dollar bill and a five dollar bill are equally
> > worthless (to Struan) and therefore neither is better than the other.
> > While it is true that five and ten pound notes are "worthless" here in
> > the States as legal tender I've yet to find any of them dumped in the
> > trash can."
>
> RICK:
> Although it doesn't take away from "the Skeptic's" point, I actually
> disagree that a five dollar bill has no value in England. Like you pointed
> out, no one in England is dumping American currency in the garbage. They
> would simply exchange it for the pounds that represent the English
> equivalent of the amount of value that the dollars represent. While you
> cannot usefully import the currency of one nation into another, the value
> that currency represents transcends all political borders. The five dollar
> bill still has its monetary value in England, the only distinction is that
> in England, dollars can only be used to buy pounds of equivalent monetary
> value.
Hi Rick
Yes! The value transcends. That is precisely Pirsig's point as I see it.
> However, I think you might have misunderstood what I meant when I wrote
> the comment you address here (or maybe I have just misunderstood your
> response). What I meant was that everyone holds some things more valuable
> than others. What those things are would be different to everyone. To
> Struan a five pound note is more valuable than five dollar bill, to us, it's
> the reverse. To some, a stack of cash is more valuable than a Van Gogh,
> others would rather have the painting. Some value freedom over security,
> some value experience over education, some value comapnionship over
> solitude... you get the point. Irrespective of the actual "things" being
> valued, everyone values some "things" more than other "things".
How is it we assign value to items like money? It's easy to experience
value if one accidentally sits upon a hot stove and it's easy to
experience value if someone gives you change for a five dollar bill when
you gave them a twenty. And likewise a stack of money is a stack of
money only as long as there is a monetary value backing it up just as
the hot stove is hot only as long as we continue to add some fuel to
keep it burning.
But why is it we value at all though? That is what Robert Pirsig is
pointing out with his money analogy. Take your Van Gogh. He couldn't
give his paintings away when he was alive. Now we "know" his paintings
are priceless. What has changed? They're still the same paintings so the
"betterness" is not in the paintings themselves. Is it? If so, why are
they "better" now than when he painted them? Or are they? Where is the
"betterness"? Who can point to it?
The stock market crashes. Where does the money go? I hear commentators
tell us all this wealth has simply "evaporated" but that is a poor
analogy. Water evaporates and comes again as rain. Money doesn't
evaporate nor does it rain down, as much as we all would like it to. So
where does the value in the market go when a crash occurs?
>
> DAN:
> > "To answer your question, yes, I have met those who would deny some
> > things are better than others. Everyone, as a matter of fact.
>
> RICK:
> EVERYONE would deny that somethings are better than others??? That's bold.
> Anyone care to jump in and comment here?
>
> DAN:
> By our very act of perception we use a static filter (what Struan might call
> a
> > built in quality detector) to block out irrelevant and inconsequential
> > data which would otherwise overwhelm our senses. It's not that the data
> > we perceive is "better" than the data we do not, but rather we are
> > preconditioned to perceive."
>
> RICK:
> I'm don't think I fully agree with this line of reasoning. On the contrary,
> what kind of "Quality detector" would it be if didn't detect Quality
> (betterness) in what it perceives. Your theory seems to make it more of a
> "qualities detector", simply picking up on those qualities it has been
> preconditioned to perceive. Think about the hot stove example... when you
> sit on hot stove you don't pick up the fact that your flesh is being burned
> because you have been preconditioned to do so. You pick up on it because
> it's REALLY better not to be burned. True, there are those who can
> (amazingly) train themselves not feel the pain of being burned, but these
> people are so exceptional BECAUSE of their ability to tolerate such a
> low-quality situation. And despite the fact that they don't "feel" the
> pain, they still get burned. And almost everyone values life over death,
> feeding over starving, etc....
Yes, if you sit on a hot stove, you don't think to yourself, hmmm, maybe
it would be better to get off. No. And if you get short changed you
don't think to yourself, well, maybe it would be better if I tell the
clerk about this mistake. No. At least I don't. But why is that?
Somewhere along the line we have experienced a similar situation and
learned to deal with it; just like those "exceptional" individuals who
can deal with pain.
>
> Besides, the mere fact that humans distinguish totally on the basis of
> preconditioning and not at all on the basis of "betterness", even if
> accepted as accurate, doesn't refute the idea that somethings are actually
> better than others. Is it so hard to believe that there are ways to be
> perceive that are BETTER than those to which we are respectively
> preconditioned?
We extend our senses to learn of our reality. And in any given situation
there is a spontaneous tendency for the best to occur, for we have set
up very specific contingencies (we're preconditioned) as to what we call
a situation. Murphy's Law is actually very applicable as well in the
MOQ.
>
> DAN:
> > For example, is green "better" than blue? Is the light we see "better"
> > than, say x-rays or infrared?
>
> RICK:
> X-rays may not be better than infrared... light may not be better than
> either... but wouldn't our perceptions be of a higher-Quality (betterness)
> if we could comfortably perceive, and therefore derive the benefits from
> seeing all three? It is better to be able to perceive more than less, it's
> better to be able to perceive than not to.....
It is one way we as humans tune into Quality. The light we "see" is not
the light we see. We are perceivers of Quality. How we perceive is not a
choice we have open to us and yet there seems to be a spontaneous
tendency to expand into a comfort zone.
>
> Thanks for you input Dan; always a pleasure...
> Rick
And thank you for sharing your thoughts too.
Dan
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