Hi Scott, Horse, all
pre-scriptum: thanks 3wDave and Dave B and Erin and Platt too for your
posts. I'll answer, as soon as possible. And I'll answer also Jonathan's
good post on the "selfless" thread....
=========
The Moral Basic Principles
(phew!)
=========
Horse:
> what about the most fundamental right? The right to life.
> Without this one all the rest are completely pointless.
Horse, your question triggers the present post, which I begun yesterday in
answer to Scott. Fortunately it was not complete, and here is the
completion. You give me the chance to state the "MOQ MORAL BASIC PRICIPLES"
(something I have invented for this
occasion, but that probably many have already stated in the past here, in
their own words).
Scott, many thanks for sharing your thoughts.
> I think the source of the disagreement is in asking
> whether we are discussing the values of the way in
> which one level "triumphs over" the lower one, or
> discussing the nature of values within a level.
> And
> this is because I think Pirsig's list is misleading.
> Which is not to say I disagree with the main point --
> that different levels have different types of values.
> But I do think the list entries are not about how a
> higher level triumphs over the lower.
My post was just to investigate what Pirsig says about the 4th-on3rd
"triumph". Let's see your objections on the other "conflicts" [that is by
the way a term, as well as triumph, I don't like very much. Roger has
explained many times that it would be a good advancement of the MOQ to
consider the relation between the levels as a "game". Anyway this is a minor
point now].
> First, on the inorganic level, there is no lower
> level, so necessarily the "laws of nature" can only be
> the on the inorganic level.
[did you know that Magnus has suggested a possible level 0?]
Anyway, you are right, strictly speaking. If there is not a level below,
there is no conflict, no game, no triumph. Pirsig says that by laws of
nature inorganic patterns triumph over chaos. Chaos, by the way, is the same
term the ancient Greeks used to mean the "empty space", Universe comes
from -confront the word "chasm" in modern English-. I guess Pirsig is here
trying to express a concept I'd summarize as the
========================================
1st Moral Principle: "It is better something than nothing".
========================================
Of course, in order to be better, the laws of nature have to rule how
inorganic patterns should interact, because without patterned interactions
that "something" that is better than "nothing" could not be a "something".
That's why, the same laws that make it possible for inorganic patterns to
interact are also the laws that make "something" triumph over "Chaos".
> Then, on the biological
> level, I see the "law of the jungle" as how biological
> creatures interact with each other, not how they
> overcome the inorganic level. They overcome the
> inorganic by using the inorganic in new and strange
> ways (DNA, etc.).
Pirsig says that by the "law of jungle" biology triumphs over the inorganic
forces of "starvation and death". So, here is the
========================================
2nd Moral Principle: "It is better alive than dead".
========================================
The law of jungle are about how living entities interact. Using a famous
mot, they tell the lion to run faster than the gazelle and the gazelle to
run faster than the lion. They tell apple trees to create good apples so
that new seeds will be spread by human beings. You see, these laws are about
how we interact in the biological realm, but all must respond to that basic
point: "it's better to be alive than dead". The way used (be it DNA or
eventually whatever else on another planet) is not the "law". It's the
"how".
Another point: this second principle applies to living entities. An
molecule of.... salt -NaCl- is perfectly moral in its non-living state.
> Then on the social level, "laws" seem to me to be
> mainly concerned with maintaining social cohesion,
> rather than overcoming the biological. That is, now
> that we are *in* societies, how do we protect
> ourselves from each other, not about protecting
> ourselves from wild beasts.....
I think Pirsig says the social law is not about protecting ourselves from
wild beasts. It is about protecting ourselves from the beasts we can be!!!
Let me try the
========================================
3rd Moral Principle "It is better together than alone".
========================================
>From this, here come the behavioral rules that make it possible to live
together. Sharing risks and skills, food and feelings... and, that's more
important, sharing information, that is culture. Again, this principle is
valid only for social beings. My solitary lemon tree feels perfectly moral
in its pot even if it has not to respond to a lemon tree culture.
> So on the intellectual level, I see reason as
> characterizing good intellectual activity. You are
> right to say that human rights are the way in which
> the intellect triumph over the social, but human
> rights are a social value, devised by the intellect to
> promote the intellect.
Human rights are IMO a set of static intellectual patterns, as they make it
possible for intellectual patterns to exist and interact.Of course, they are
at the basis, as they have to keep at bay social forces. Intellectually, we
don't bear a law that overrides human rights. Socrates and Jesus and Galileo
have been legally condemned according to the social law, but we all know it
was not the right thing.
I think the human rights Pirsig talks about respond to another basic
principle.
========================================
4th moral principle "Individuality is better than the mass"
========================================
It could seem in contradiction with the 3rd, but it is not. The 3rd tells us
that we have better chances living together to satisfy the 2nd principle.
The 4th does not tell us that we have to go back to a solitary life in the
jungle (this has been in facts more or less the huge mistake of the hippies
in the 60's!) Not at all. It tells that the best way to improve culture, the
system of shared information, the 3rd level, is to acknowledge, improve and
liberate the infinite possibilities everyone of us has inside. With the less
possible cultural limitations!
My favorite poet, Eugenio Montale, once said: "only isolated people speak,
only isolated people communicate; the others - the people of mass
communication - repeat, echo... ". Cory Ramage, a MOQer who was around on
MF a couple of years ago, wrote a brief beautiful essay on this point (18
dec 1999 to MF). I think that the passage from Lila about vacation and
Dhyana fits perfectly with this point.
Attention. Individuality should not be mistaken for individualism. David B
showed that intellect is both about individuality (example: the Brujo) and
cooperation (example: the Scientific community). Right - I don't agree on
the opposite, but it doesn't matter here. The point is that a *true
intellectual* scientific community is composed of scientists that are all
freely following their intellectual interest. This forum is intellectual
'cause we are all following freely our personal interest. The fact that more
or less our interests are similar and MOQ-based make it possible to have an
intellectual cooperation, based upon our free individuality.
In other cases (for example the Manhattan project) scientists have been
cooperating for a precise social purpose: helping USA defeating Japan,
Germany and Italy. Building the bomb before Hitler could. But after the end
of WWII, many were not very glad for what they had done. The Bomb was not
the intellectual purpose many of them had in their minds when decided to
become scientists.
In the end, back to Scott's questions, I think there is not contradiction
between the laws that make it possible the interaction of patterns within a
level and the basic moral principle that says that it is better the higher
level prevails over the lower one. The basic moral principle is the Dynamic
side (something is better) and the laws of interaction is the static side
(how does it work that "better"). Yea, it's always a question of better.
Individually yours,
Marco
p.s.
hmmmmm...... it's not over. Could be the time to look at the famous code of
art.... that is in the same chapter Dave took the question from.
By the way, I've just seen that actually the answer to Dave question was not
only in chapter 24, but a few pages later, in the same
chapter 13. «there were moral codes that established the supremacy of the
intellectual order over the social order -democracy, trial by jury, freedom
of speech, freedom of the press»
So, the MOQ is not a thriller, and Pirsig is not Hitchcock. No suspense.
Oh, here is the quote I was searching for.
«Finally there's a fourth Dynamic morality which isn't a code. He supposed
you could call it a "Code of Art" or something like that , but art is
usually thought of as such a frill that that title undercuts its
importance. The morality of the Brujo in Zuni-that was Dynamic morality»
This passage has triggered hundreds of pages about a possible 5th artistic
level above. At the contrary I love to put artists on the 4th level, where
the "isolated speak". So, what about this 5th .... code "or something like
that"? Pirsig sketches DQ (in the SODAV paper) as something that is in the
background of all the 4 static levels. And here offers the example of the
Brujo, not exactly an artist. Actually "Art" is according to Pirsig, High
Quality Endeavor: there's no need to be a painter or a musician to be an
artist. We have to care, to do it well, whatever we do. Pictures or
motorcycle maintenance. So, can we try to state another basic principle?
Yes, but it is not the 5th one: it is very the basic one.
===========================
the basic principle: Better is Better
===========================
A tautology? Yes, why not. Jonathan taught me how tautologies are good.
After all, we should not "yelp about God". God is God, according to the
Bible. As well, according to the MOQ, good is good, and better is better.
This tautology applies to atoms, lemon trees, societies and human beings.
Whatever you are, whatever you do, do it better. Be an aRTist.
really over, now
Thank you all again.
Marco
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