HAMISH:
> I'm sorry, I was in a rush. 'Bash' is not intenteded to be a derogative
comment
> on what you said. I was trying to state that this is a good humoured
analysis
> into MoQ. I regret that you felt offense - but this was unintended on my
part
> [originally this read *mart* but I felt a need to correct it :-)]
RICK:
Sorry I snapped at you... A professor of mine once warned me that sarcasm
doesn't seem to travel over the internet very well, I guess I should learn
to be more generous.
> > >
> > > RICK:
> > > Pirsig claims that the MoQ's various codes and levels give us the
> > ability to deduce moral issues with greater precision than before.
> > >
> > HAMISH:
> > Yes. Pirsig is arguing that *his* MoQ describes experience better than
SOM.
> >
> > RICK:
> > No, this is Pirsig arguing that *his* MoQ interprets Moral issues more
> > clearly than SOM.
>
HAMISH:
> Morality is experience - I think Pirsig would agree. It is a judgment for
> *better*. If you wish to dissociate morality from observation, I'm afraid
that
> this is your choice, not mine.
RICK:
Yes, Pirsig would agree that Morality=Experience (and at some
fundemental level he may be right) but by "Moral Issues" I was refering to
something a bit more specfic than the totality of experience... things like
the conflict between doctor/germ, hindu/cow.... Perhaps "Moral Conflicts"
would be a more appropriate term. Personally, I've never been quite
comfortable with Pirsig's Quality=Reality=Morality=Experience=Value.... It
seems to 'rob' all these perfectly good words of their more specific
meanings
and while the terms Morality/Value have been associated long before RMP, as
well as Experience/Reality... there arise many cases in which these terms
just don't seem interchangeable and it creates quite a few rhetorical
problems (my degree is inrhetoric and I'm very sensitive to word play).
For example, while it may be perfectly natural to say, "In my
experience, men are better baseball players than women," it seems bizarre to
say, "In my morality/value/Quality men are better....." I realize this
example is a bit simplistic (I wish I had time to work up a better one), but
it gives the idea of what I'm getting at.
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------- >
> > RICK:
> > It seems very strange to me that you believe that the relevance of
"family"
> > to the Inorganic is so obvious and yet you're not sure of it's relevance
to
> > the Social level.... Were you, by any chance, raised in an orphanage?
>
HAMISH:
> Er, Rick. This actual point was that family & inorganic [my notation] = 0
in my
> opinion. 0 being the common cypher for zero = nada = niente = null. And
that I
> would be interested into arguments to the contrary. I am deeply interested
into
> your reapraisal of your previous comment ? :-)
>
RICK:
Sorry, I completely misread that section of your post, objection withdrawn.
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
> > RICK:
> > If assigning patterns to levels is simply a matter of personal choice
> > then why bother with the MoQ at all??? Why not just skip it and make
those
> > moral decisions on directly on the same personal choice???
> > >
> > > HAMISH:
> > > Well, no reason really, it just seems like a better idea to do so.
> >
> > RICK:
> > You'll agree that there's no reason to bother with the MoQ when making
moral
> > decisions, but still claim it's better to do so...??? Can you PLEASE
> > explain that.
>
HAMISH:
> Rick, I really hesititate to quote from the dedication [correction the bit
after
> the dedication - my literary ignorance shinses through] ..
RICK:
Dedication? From ZMM? "What is good and what is not good Phaedrus....etc"
If this is what you're refering I'm quite sorry to say that that quote seems
directly opposed to the philosophy in LILA... LILA quite boldly attempts to
tell us what is and is not good...
>
HAMISH:
I consider that SOM is just as ad hoc as the defenders of SOM make
> out MoQ to be.
RICK:
And I agree, the catch is that MoQ is supposed to be an improvement over SOM
that allows for precision in moral reasoning through a new metaphysical
interpretation of reality...
Keeping it real,
Rick
------- End of forwarded message -------
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:25 BST