Hi Ed,
Welcome to the discussion.
> GLENN:
> Maybe you missed my point. Whenever there is a moral issue between the
> intellectual and social level, the evolutionary moral hierarchy says
> to side with intellect. However, if siding with the intellect undermines
> the social level to the detriment of the intellectual level, you should
> side with the social. Depending on the issue, there may be compelling
> arguments for either course. What guidance does MOQ provide for this
> predicament? None.
>
> ED:
> The guidance, as I see it, is a judgment as to which choice will be more
> dynamic, the one that potentiates further or greater evolution. I doubt we
> will ever be able to confidently make such decisions in all situations, but
> the guidance is assisted from knowing where we are headed. More on this
> below.
This is basically what Platt said, so I think you also missed my point.
What I'm saying is that you've *already* considered this guidance about
choosing the more dynamic level, but something is also tugging you to side
with the social level. If both tugs have near equal merit, what does MOQ
advise you to do? Go back to the moral hierarchy as you suggest? Well,
you've already done that! It would just be a vicious cycle to do it again.
Instead you end up making a decision based on a vague sense of quality or
morality or intuition, just as anyone does currently.
> ED:
> That trivial examples work provides at least some basic credence to the MOQ
> framework. The MOQ does need to be tested with more complex issues.
Agreed.
Similar
> to Goldbach's conjecture that says, "every even integer is the sum of two
> numbers that are either primes or 1." It works well for simple examples like
> 12 = 5 + 7 = 1 + 11. Yet we aren't sure the conjecture works for extremely
> large numbers, it hasn't been proved. But for all the numbers checked so far
> it has worked.
>
> Rationally, Goldbach's conjecture is either proveable for all integers or
> not. If it is not proveable (which is not to say it was proved false), the
> conjecture may still hold. In this case it would take a leap of faith to
> trust it with extremely large untested numbers.
>
> Curiously, the author of the text I took this example from wrote, "The
> numerical data suggesting the truth of Goldbach's conjecture is
> overwhelming. ... Although this supports the feeling that Goldbach was
> correct in his conjecture, it is far from a mathematical proof, and all
> attempts to prove it have been completely unsuccessful." Note the word
> "feeling." Here we are in the rational rigor of mathematical patterns and
> find that mathematicians, without proof, rely upon their "feelings," or
> intuition, or a sense of Quality for direction.
Yes, yes, of course they do. But in this case the "sense of Quality" that
leads them to believe in Goldbach's conjecture is overwhelming rational
evidence. It has been verified to numbers as high as 20 billion, according
to one source. It's only natural to think, if the conjecture were wrong,
you'd have found a counterexample by now.
I'm not sure why you are bringing up Goldbach's conjecture right after a
discussion of Pirsig's moral hierarchy, except to bring up the fact that intuition is involved in believing either are true. I'll grant you that on principle, but I hope you see there is a world of difference. Analogous
support of MOQ's moral hierarchy framework would have it solving, with
consensus agreement, 20 billion moral dilemmas without a solution to a single moral issue being left to doubt.
Of course this is impractical but we don't need to go through the trouble
because there's a counterexample (Platt's grandchildren vs posting to
this forum) to the moral framework. If you disagree this is a
counter-example, as Platt has, I've at least thrown into question the
efficacy of the framework for harder moral issues.
The moral framework is useful for understanding why a moral issue is
difficult or simple, but it doesn't offer any practical value for
solutions, since trivial ones can be solved without it and harder ones
are not guided by it.
Glenn
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