Denis expounded:
> Reality is made of both positive and negative elements, and change
> isn't always for the best. The relation to Morality is that
> good changes have (generally) more latching power than bad
> ones. I'm sure people will call me wildly optimistic at
> this statement, but if you take a "level's view" (by which
> I mean : if it's good for the level in which it happens), I
> think it's right.
>
> I believe the reason why we can say that the universe is
> a moral one is because the static latches are made on the
> basis of the Quality of DQ events. It's kind of a circular
> argument, but I think it captures the 'Lila-dance' of
> creation, the cyclic rythm of Death fueling Life and so on.
> Good and Bad are necessary as a way of continually testing
> static patterns, and forcing them to improve. What's good
> for a level survives and changes it, until something better
> comes along, making it Bad.
SPOT ON!!! I agree.
There's a science fiction novel by Frank Herbert about a person who goes
through an amazing transformation, becoming God personified (at least in the
eyes of most of humanity) and rules the Empire of humanity for thousands of
years. Not the nicest personality to have rule you, though, since the
character describes himself as 'the ultimate predator.'
Y'know, predators weed out the weak or otherwise 'unfit'. In the short term,
they are evil incarnate (to their prey anyway); but from an evolutionary
point of view, they help promote Dynamic Quality. So is a predator
'Universally Moral'? How about HUMAN predators?
Problem with such questions being, how do you take such a long point of view
without the benefit of hindsight? "How do you tell the saviors from the
degenerates?" as Pirsig said. Isn't this basically the same question?
The answer seems crystal clear: you can't. You can NEVER absolutely predict
what DQ will produce, though you can augur approximations of near-future
developments. The further into the future you try to predict, the more chaos
(DQ?) prevents you.
-------
On the subject of predators though, I have to relate this. Once, in a logic
class, the professor used an analogy to demonstrate that logic is VALUE-FREE
(poor guy, he had yet to learn I am Pirsighian to the core): "Imagine a mouse
in a field, being attacked and eaten by a hawk. For the mouse, this would be
rather bad; for the hawk, this would be pretty good. But in terms of logic,
there is no good or bad."
I immediately raised my hand and said, "What if the hawk attacked efficiently?
"
I never got a satisfactory answer.
-Scott
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