Here follows the rest of John Beasley post :
>Artistic and moral quality evolve. Probably intellectual quality (truth)
>also evolves. The lure of quality is the lure of the next stage of quality,
>measured from where I already am.
I am not sure I can follow you there, except if you mean "quality", not in
the sense of pre-intellectual awareness, but of judgment of value. You see,
the problem I've always had with the choice of the term "Quality" for
pre-intellectual awareness is that "quality" implies a judgment, not
necessarily a rational one, or even an intellectual one, but a judgment
nonetheless. While I agree that the universe is constantly passing judgment,
it is *not* made of judgments, but of value. Value is then judged (mostly
differently) by different patterns of value. Judgment is the interaction of
patterns, not the patterns themselves.
So the judgment evolves, but the value, intrinsically, stays the same. Just
because you do not have the necessary maths to understand an equation
doesn't make it meaningless.
[snip]
>And each of us in our development moves through a sequence in
>which what is valuable (dynamic) is just beyond what we currently have come
>to value in a more static sense. Mostly these sequences of value follow
>patterns that are fairly predictable, but sometimes not. Sometimes the
>dynamic value comes from an unexpected quarter. Like the guy who sees his
>hand with wonder and delight while recovering from his heart attack.
>
>What I am currently interested in is how education is a process for
>facilitating the appreciation of value. (I'm writing another long boring
>essay which I may one day inflict on the forum.) Value is relative when it
>is applied to the social and intellectual realms, and arguably not so in
the
>biological realm. And I still fail to grasp how value impinges on the
>inorganic realm at all. I think it's just an imposition for the sake of
>theoretical niceness.
>
This last point I must disagree with. Value is "recognized" by atoms just as
much as by organisms. Mass, positive or negative charge, potential energy,
kinetic energy, heat, what do you think these are if not "values" ? The
inorganic realm recognize inorganic values just as much as the social realm
recognize social values.
I have one last problem with the term "Quality", that might be the cause of
your misunderstanding of value. It is the good/bad axis on which Quality
imprisons value. Value can be much more than good or bad, which is one of
the reasons why I rejected Pirsig's "rational morality".
Value can be anything our language has an adjective for, and then some,
IMHO.
It makes no sense to believe that things are judged only on a good/bad axis,
and to ignore everything that isn't concerned with "morals" in the classic
sense. If you've seen the film 'Rain Man', where Dustin Hoffman played an
autistic man, you might remember the scene where a girl kisses him and asks
him how it was. In a complete reversal of Pirsig's "good dog" scene, he
answers : "Wet."
This isn't an invalid answer, and it isn't an intellectual one like the one
Pirsig expected about the dog. It's a perfect answer about one of the
judgments you can pass on a kiss : it can be good, but it's also wet, and
warm.
Be good
Denis
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