Hi All
What's going on? I've only been away for a couple of weeks and come back to
complete and utter chaos!
This started out as a PROGRAM on the Morality and the MoQ and seems to have
degenerated into a complete and utter mess with almost nothing to do with the
MoQ, let alone Morality. I was hoping from my last post, shortly before I signed off
to move house, that there would be some sort of structured approach to forming a
moral system based upon the MoQ that would enable a deductive approach to
moral issues. Instead, as I had feared, there was a piecemeal approach to moral
values which quickly degenerated into a politico-religious freshman debate -
poorly structured and totally pointless. We got lots of peoples opinions but no
reason or structure to support it. This is the standard way that these issues are
approached on low-quality chat shows or crap newsgroups.
There seems to be an amount of confusion regarding the 4 levels which, as far as
I'm aware, have never been a contentious issue - but all of a sudden there's a
whole side issue declaring the social level above the intellectual level, so I
suppose I'd better enter the debate here.
*******************************************************************************
INTELLECT
SOCIETY
MIND
BIOLOGY
INORGANIC/CHEMICAL
The main problem with the above is the idea of an arbitrary level of Mind between
Biology and Society. There seems too have been little attempt to define what is
meant by the term 'Mind' in this particular context. One attempt was along the
lines of the ability to recognise others of the same type. This idea, along with the
ability to recognise food, react to light etc. is little more than pattern recognition
and/or instinctual biological behaviour. Another, more reasonable, idea is that this
form of 'Mind' is another word for Brain. Whichever way we look at it, 'Mind' in this
sense is a red herring and can be dumped without further ado. This leaves the
original structure laid out in Lila intact and unless someone can show a reasoned
argument to re-jig these levels, from an evolutionary point of view, there is no point
in arguing over it.
************************************************************************************
FINTAN:
"Intellect has usurped the role of GOD OVER SOCIETY."
Yeah. Several thousand years and uncountable needless deaths too late.
"No more Doric columns, thank you, for IN SIMPLICITY IS WISDOM."
And let's not forget superstition for the simple-minded - that's nice and simple too
and explains anything you want it to.
"Funny, isn't it how the common man is deeply suspicious of intellectuals ..."
Who is this common man anyway? I keep hearing about him and yet I never
seem to meet him. Is this something to do with the idea that "Book larnin' never
did no-one no good' or the notion that you can learn all you need to know at the
University of Life or the preparatory School of Hard Knocks. In general, most
people seem suspicious of anything they don't understand, which is why
"witches" were burnt throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, why the Crusades
were allowed to take place and why there have been more atrocities committed in
the name of GOD than from virtually any other known cause.
Something you seem to have missed in your posts regarding Common-Sense (an
oxymoron on a level with military intelligence if I ever heard one) is that it is a
catch-all phrase for any badly reasoned but emotive bullshit that you care to
mention. Superstition, old-wives tales, racism, sexism, religious bigotry etc. is
the general result of "Common Sense". The rise of intellect, which includes
reason, has had the result of clearing away some of the above and, given
sufficient time, may destroy the remainder. To continue with the Social level
constructs of the above, along with other Social level excesses, such as pollution,
destruction of the environment etc. will see the end of life on the planet. Or will
Common Sense prevail?
"In Irish lore, there are thousands of "sayings" like:
Far away hillls are green.
Every begining is weak."
The last time I was in Dublin - a couple of years back - I also heard another
saying about the difference between a long mile and a short mile. Add to this the
saying that "the only good British Soldier is a dead British Soldier" and ........ well
figure it out for yourself.
********************************************************************************************
JONATHAN:
"I accept Pirsig's structural dependence of Intellect on Society (see
my post of 23rd August). What I argue with is his MORAL ranking of
Intellect above Society above Biology ... "
I think that there are a number of subtle issues involved here which may be
resolved by reference to a structured moral framework, which I believe should be
based on rights. It is not NECESSARILY the case that the structural framework of
the MoQ (Intellect, Society....) should ALWAYS indicate moral superiority, but
that in cases of conflict this is normally the case. Moral values and structures are
not reducible to mathematical symbolism and manipulation (as Mill found out with
his notion of a calculus of utility). Anyway, this post is stretching on a bit so I'll
start a reply to the above in a new post.
There have been far too many posts in the last couple of weeks to reply to every
one individually, so I think I'll go back to the PROGRAM, if possible, for my next
post.
Horse
"Making history, it turned out, was quite easy.
It was what got written down.
It was as simple as that!"
Sir Sam Vimes.
homepage - http://www.moq.org
queries - mailto:moq@moq.org
unsubscribe - mailto:majordomo@moq.org with UNSUBSCRIBE MOQ_DISCUSS in
body of email
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:39 BST