Daniel and squad,
I look upon the MoQ as being in existence from the beginning and
producing the reality of the physical universe. Had sentience not appeared
there would still have existed a moral universe that was good and had
value.
I do not equate Quality with the idea of God. Once we accept the idea
that the universe is here and that it must have come into being at some
point, and we conceive of Quality which drives the universe then all else
follows without the necessity of an unfounded belief. The only belief
required is that the universe came into existence and included Quality.
Instead of Quality we could even say that the driving force behind the
pre-sentient evolution of the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
The effect would be the same and would make no difference to the outcome.
Noodling around a little here it seems to me that the reason that
humanity had to come up with biblical and similar stories of the
development of the universe as well as the accompanying moral structures
was that we did not have the knowledge to understand the operation of the
physical universe and the straightforward way that increasing evolutionary
niches plus the urging of Quality could cause us to arrive where are
physically. All of this was moral simply because the process was moral.
As discussed before, the development of aware life imposed no disruptive
demands on the operation of evolution. All life operated without regard for
the capabilities of the biosphere and was kept in check by a lack of
disruptive ability. All was still moral and Earth and its biosphere was
compatible with universal evolution.
Again, as discussed before, the development of sentinence gave humanity
the ability to pursue its own interests to the detriment of universal
evolution and, in particular, the biosphere. In the beginning our failure
to realize the extent of our ability to disrupt the operation of the
biosphere allowed us to operate in the same fashion as pre-sentient life.
Now it is becoming apparent that our concept of universal morality must
take into account the functioning of the biosphere. The moral demands have
changed and we can no longer depend on Quality alone to steer us in a moral
direction that has good and value.
So far, all of this morality and good and value has been in the context
of Pirsig's concept of Quality and we can make fairly straightforward
judgements as to the morality of competing situations.
The point at which I become confused is when I try to apply quality to
human interactions that may have nothing to do with universal morality.
This thread of confusion seems to me to also run through Pirsig's books as
well as the squad.
It seems to me that the argument that the higher morality is that which
is at a higher level is not completely satisfactory. I can see situations
where the moral demands of society, or biology, or even the inorganic level
should take precedence over those of the intellect.
What about the case lately in California where a ten storey high, forty
acre dump of used tires caught fire and burned or rather is still burning.
Shouldn't the disposal or recycling of all of those millions of used tires
be a moral question? Puzzled. Ken Clark
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