From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Nov 15 2004 - 21:14:39 GMT
Hi Sam,
> So, my (deliberately provocative) assertion was: according to the MoQ, the
> worst thing about 9/11 was the loss of the ideas in all the victim's heads.
> Which seems to be morally absurd - but which seems to me to be a logical
> consequence of the above two elements of the MoQ.
Right, except it was also the loss of potential ideas that might have been
essential to the evolution of morality.
> Now, an assumption lying behind this is that there is no 'thing' in the MoQ
> which corresponds to what we would normally describe as a 'person', ie when
> we think of a person - Jane Doe - that which we call 'Jane Doe' can be more
> accurately characterised by the breaking down of that conglomeration of
> patterns of values into the constituent parts (I think Pirsig at one point
> talks about people being 'forests' of patterns of value). [I've also just
> had a quick rummage in Lila to find where he discusses the question of
> 'self' and 'identity' more explicitly, but I couldn't find it. Perhaps it's
> in one of his other papers - can anyone point me to it?)
Well, logically we must presume one for there to be many, i.e., there must
be "thing" (whole) for there to be a conglomerate (parts).
> To push this point, as I
> understand the MoQ, 'Jane Doe' is an illusion, and one that we need to be
> free of. (This, I think, can actually be defended - Chuck's point, what's
> wrong with accepting the implications that I am drawing out?)
It can be defended only by faith in a reality where Jane Doe and all other
human beings are merely points light (little selves) representing an
eternal light (big Self), each shining for a brief time and then burning
out.
> MSH also commented: I'm having trouble understanding your question. I don't
> see how the MOQ, or any metaphysics, can GIVE value to anything. In the
> MOQ, Quality IS value, and everything derives from Quality. Everything is
> composed of patterns of value, including people, so I don't understand what
> you mean when you speak of "people as such", which suggests that they are
> something apart from the patterns that compose them. People aren't just
> valuable; they ARE value.
To say "people are value" doesn't help much because in the MOQ, all things
are value, just that some things are of more value than others.
> Scott introduced the question of the mentally retarded, which is another
> aspect of the problem, and I think his question is sound. What is at stake,
> as I understand it, is whether the retarded person is seen as possessing an
> inherent Quality in and of themselves. To say that they might be the source
> of ideas (in other people presumably?) is, I think, to miss the point of
> the concern. To use a more familiar philosophical idiom, do people
> (retarded or otherwise) have value as ends in themselves, or are they
> simply means to the preservation of other values (biological patterns,
> social patterns, intellectual patterns)?
As I read the MOQ, people are means to the end of moral evolution.
> Let me put it like this: if there is a pattern of value that can be
> classified in the MoQ schema, which corresponds to what we call a person
> (eg 'Jane Doe') then my concerns are all overcome. It's just that I don't
> think that there is. Consider this: "the greatest meaning can be given to
> the intellectual level if it is confined to the skilled manipulation of
> abstract symbols that have no co rresponding particular experience and
> which behave according to rules of their own" (Pirsig). This is the highest
> level of value according to the MoQ - and I can't see any room for making a
> person correspond to an abstract symbol.
Isn't a person logically necessary as being the manipulator of abstract
symbols? We're not all robots -- yet.
You raise a most interesting question, Sam.
Platt
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