Hi Struan and LS:
Struan, I asked if you can find a materialist who subscribes to Pirsig's
assumption that the fundamental nature of reality is moral. Your answer
was to refer me to the following quote from the essay by Richard C.
Vitzthum:
“. . . the manifold phenomena of physical nature -- light, heat, flora,
fauna, consciousness -- are probably manifestations of a single,
foundational, material reality, perhaps ultimately describable in terms of
some future science."
Then you claimed that the quote is meaningless and that Vitzthum could
just as well have said "a single, foundational, Quality realty.” I'm sure
Vitzthum will be delighted to know that his summation amounts to
gibberish in your opinion.
Further, you omitted his very last words. "Materialism welcomes this
success (of a future science describing ultimate reality) as further
confirmation of its 2500-year-old hypothesis."
And what does Vitzthum say is the materialist hypothesis? I quote from
his essay verbatim:
“First, that all reality is essentially a material reality; second, no
supernatural or immaterial reality can exist; and third, that all organic life
arises from and return to inorganic matter."
Now I submit to you and other LS'ers that this hypothesis admits to
nothing remotely resembling the hypothesis of the MoQ which asserts
that the fundamental nature of the world is simultaneously material and
immaterial in a four level structure and that indeed, the immaterial not
only exists, but (in the form of Dynamic Quality) creates reality in all its
manifestations, material and otherwise, as patterns of value.
I applaud your attempts to marry the MoQ with materialism, but by no
stretch can you take what Vitzthum writes and make a coherent
connection to the MoO.
You could, however, make a case if Vitzthum had written what you wrote:
"Survival of the fittest IS survival of the most moral. What the intellect
VALUES is MORALLY bound to prevail and the same goes for the rest of
the continuum which our intellect describes as levels." Right on. Pure
Pirsig.
But Vitzthum doesn't come within a jillion miles of saying stuff like that.
Instead he equates morality with physical sensing.
So I ask again, without reinterpreting for us what they say or stretching
our credulity, can you find any materialist who subscribes to Pirsig's
assumption that the fundamental nature of reality is moral?
Platt
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