evolve,
EVOLVE wrote:
Why are drugs usually considered morally wrong? They are a device to enable
dynamic quality, think about it, they alter your perceptions so that the
things that you are seeing/feeling, are the same as always, but your
perception of them is altered - dynamic quality, you are seeing things with
new eyes. It is only when abuse/addiction occurs that these dynamic
patterns subside to static patterns. These patterns are mental/intellectual
which in the MoQ is morally 'better' than social or biological patterns. I
think that one of the reasons for their opression is the damage which is
able to be caused to biological and social static patterns, but static
patterns are morally inferior to dynamic patterns so this argument does not
stand. Obviously drugs can cause great harm, but I believe they can also
bring about great advances in understanding which are suppressed by the
holders of the reigns of static social patterns. Just an idea.
While I agree that drugs can cause great harm, I don't think they can also
bring about great advances in understanding. I've heard this argument many
times before but no one has yet revealed what these great advances are.
Perhaps you think that the "new eyes" you have under the influence of drugs
allow you to see new realities or reality proper, lifted from the haze of
our normal view which is socially or culturally constructed. I think that's
bunk. The drug is temporarily altering your brain chemistry and causing you
to perceive objects in distorted ways. The way you normally perceive objects
is not so much based on the culture you live in but millions of years of
biological evolution.
Feeling omnipotent and having great inspirations and solving the world's
greatest philosophical dilemmas is common while under the influence of drugs.
But you can also work yourself up to have these same feelings, though less
intense, by ingesting soft drinks and pretzels during all-night college
bull sessions with your buddies. Either way, when you wake up sometime the
next day, the insights you had the night before seem trite or they have
simply evaporated from memory. All you can really remember is that you
had a great time. I call this the philosopher's high. Be wary of it.
Another common trap is to think that certain kinds of drugs, like the
so-called psychadelics, are special in that they tap into dynamic
quality, while other kinds of drugs, like amphetamines and depressants,
do not. Let me make a case for plain old boring alcohol. Suppose you
drink a six pack or however much it takes to start the room spinning.
There you are, lying perfectly still on the living room carpet, and the
ceiling and walls are whizzing around, and you actually feel dizzy,
just as you would if you stood up and spun around haphazardly. Now
I'm going to claim that that alcohol has given me "new eyes" into
perceiving reality. I believe I'm having this spinning sensation because
I'm experiencing raw reality, with all the normal static filters of our
normal lives lifted away. My great breakthrough in understanding is
explaining why I feel a spinning sensation. What I come up with is that
in raw reality you *should* feel dizzy, because the earth is spinning on
its axis, which is simultaneously spinning around the sun, which is
spinning through the Milky Way, which is expanding outward into the universe.
What's really lacking, in an SOM world-view, is an explanation for why
we don't always feel dizzy! Brilliant, aye?
I think Pirsig has not thought through his idea of dynamic quality fully
enough. It seems pretty clear to me that all his examples of experiencing
DQ are confusions with physiological responses, of which I include psychic
and subjective experiences. He would claim that peyote brings it out, but
how is it that a drug - substance-stuff - could pull that off if DQ is
primary? It seems we need static quality (the drug) to get dynamic
quality, but this is the reverse of what the MOQ claims.
Glenn
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