Hi Walter, JC, Jonathan, Platt and all
On 4 Jan 00, at 23:58, Walter Balestra wrote:
> WALTER SAYS:
> Reality IS a moral ordering of static patterns and of DQ. I agree with JC that
> Morality is a continuum as long as it's completely clear that we're talking about
> the Morality=Value=Quality kind of Morality and not about the static (social)
> concepts of morality (laws, rules, taboes, trafic signs ;-), etc.). But I take it
> you knew that.
>
> I would add that this line is a continuum of patterns of value from patterns that
> have little potential to let DQ be realised to the best extend to patterns that
> have optimal potential to let DQ be realised to the best extend. Now we have
> Morality as a continuum towards the optimal realization of DQ, but that leaves
> us with the nature of the Good.
>
> HORSE CONTINUES:
> What emerges from a conflict between (or within) levels is not, of
> necessity, Good. [...] Good is a judgement of some form - whether
> Intellectual, Social etc. is debateable, but is not an exact equivalent
> of Moral (= Reality).
>
> WALTER SAYS:
> 'Good is a judgement of some form' is beautifully put. I would like to stress
> however that the outcome of the judgement is fully dependent on the
> perspective one takes.
This is probably so from within an Intellectual context, but a judgement can imply more than
an Intellectual assessment. For example, the judge of a 'good' mutation (inorganic/biological)
is, initially, whether it (or it's host) survives. No intellect is involved. If the mutation is 'too
dynamic' the most likely outcome will be a fast death. A small change may be the optimal
change. Survival, fecundity and longevity will provide the judge of the good in this case. This
also is an example illustrating that it is not necessarily so that 'maximum betterness' is
necessarily equivalent to the greatest change. So DQ does not necessarily mean a large
change, it may be that the best move towards DQ is taken in small, barely noticeable steps.
Would this apply at all levels? Is it more often the case that too great an increment of
change (maximised DQ) is damaging at all levels?
> When JC says that 'Good is the direction ON the line', it implies that
> there is a point on the line from where the direction is marked. I take this as
> the perspective that always has to be defined when one wants to examine
> the Good or IOW determine the direction of the Good.
I'm still a bit unsure of JC's take on Morality as a continuum and Good as a direction.To me
this implies a lack of dimensionality and increased restrictiveness. Perhaps JC would
expand on this idea and/or reference the original post from which this idea came.
> Furthermore (and to make it more complicated), I ask myself if we should
> restrict the view of Good as some form of judgement to humans only.
Definitely not. This I think would tend to relegate Good to what is useful to humans, whereas
there is an intrinsic good which is independent of human judgement.
> In a broader way it's not just a judgement a human-being makes about
> his likes and dislikes, but also the 'judgement' lightning makes when destroying
> a tree or an acorn makes to grow out to become an oak. I remember Jonathan
> ones said patterns of value are actually patterns of evaluation. I hope I don't
> rip it out of context, but just the same we can see this Good as an evaluation
> of the events and interactions of static patterns of value from a certain perspective.
Yeah.That sounds like a pretty reasonable assessment. Once we separate Moral from Good
( even though the two are co-dependent) in order to examine what is Good, ideas seem to
materialise. Good is not _just_ an intellectual pattern, although it is _also_ an intellectual
pattern.
> PLATT WROTE
> > Because of the MoQ moral hierarchy it seems to me apparent that even
> > though Pirsig collapses the fact-value dichotomy that this doesn't mean that
> > all actions the world takes (using whatever instrument it chooses, including
> > you and me) are also moral. It all depends (-: on where the behavior in
> > question occurs in the MOQ hierarchy of goodness and how other levels are
> > affected by it.
>
> HORSE RESPONDED:
> From the MoQ axiom that Quality = Value = Morality and that reality is composed of
> patterns of Value it would seem that reality IS and MUST BE moral. But from what you say
> above you seem to agree with me that not everything is GOOD - or at least not all things are
> equally good?
>
> WALTER:
> The many differences in the judgement of Good are the result of the static
> backpack people are wearing (the context) and the different perspectives
> persons take in there judgement.
> Horse writes that 'what links Morality and Good is Dynamic Value', but this
> just seems to easy an answer. How does DQ link Morality and Good?
I think the answer to this is at the end of chapter 12 in Lila:
"... not just life, but everything, is an ethical activity. It is nothing else. When inorganic
patterns of reality create life the Metaphysics of Quality postulates that they've done so
because it's 'better' and that this 'betterness' - this beginning response to Dynamic Quality -
is an elementary unit of ethics upon which all right and wrong can be based."
Static patterns of Value are static moral patterns and these patterns are the basis of reality
at all levels. How these patterns respond to DQ determines the Good. Imagine the response
as a bell curve: No response - No change/ No Good; Over-response - too much change =
pattern damage,again No Good.
> My take on this is that the Good is united with the Moral by the individual
> proces of broadening the perspective one has. I see this broadening as moral
> stages a person goes through in his/her life. The Good from the broadest
> perspective is completely coexistent (= parallel and in moment of occurence
> and nature alike) with the Morality of the universe. This is the widest perspective
> there is. It can be called the universal perspective or the mystic. The self is no
> longer part of the judgement. Actually, it is a state in which there's no judgement
> anymore ... at all.
I agree that Good is co-existent with the morality of the universe because the morality of the
universe is the existence of the universe or reality itself. Reality (= MoQ-Morality) and Good
are co-dependent (and even co-evolutionary) but not identical.
Horse
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