From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Nov 06 2002 - 15:32:13 GMT
Hi Jonathan:
> Platt, I know that you can throw half a dozen quotes from Lila to
> support this, but I think you will find Pirsig was sometimes careless
> and self contradictory, e.g. in one place, he identifies morality with
> value, but elsewhere he explicitly states that morality is INTERlevel,
> concerning the interactions BETWEEN levels of value.
I'd say that morality consists of both the levels themselves AND the
interaction between levels. Each level has its own moral code (laws of
physics, laws of the jungle, laws of societies, laws of truth) causing
moral conflicts to arise as each level tries to use its particular power
(entropy, survival, community, ideas) to dominate.
> To say level X is "better" than level Y means that "The Theory of
> Relativity" (of even Phlogiston theory) is somehow better than the
> Carbon atom. This sounds like nonsense to me. I don't think they can be
> compared on a simple one-dimensional scale of betterness. I think that
> Steve's offerings make more sense.
Personally I think it's better to attain a level where theories can be
argued rather than get stuck at the level where carbon atoms reign. In
other words, it's better to be a tree than an atom, a monkey than a tree,
a man than a monkey, a biologist than a terrorist. These are all level
related patterns. I would agree, however, that it would be a grave
mistake to consider carbon atoms worthless. We'd be nowhere without
them. :-)
Take care,
Platt
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