From: Joseph Maurer (jhmau@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Tue Nov 16 2004 - 17:21:42 GMT
On 15 November 2004 5:12 AM Sam writes to Platt, MSH, Erin, Chuck, Dan, Dm,
and DMB, with thanks for all the comments,
<snip>
[Sam] Let me put it like this, it is not that the MoQ GIVES or ASSIGNS value
to people (or anything) it is that it is a description of what does or does
not have value, and in the MoQ 'people' have no value (they do not exist,
therefore they are precisely NOT a 'pattern of value'); whereas IDEAS etc do
have value (do exist, are patterns of value). Is that clearer?
Hi Sam and all,
The men in our amateur chorus in a recent concert sang Mary Had A Baby by
William L. Dawson, while the women listened. I sing Bass II. In answer to
the Baritone statement: Mary Had A Baby on G we sang My Lord! on the low
octave. After 3 repeats of surprise, My Lord! we sang as tenderly as we
could Oh, Mary had a Baby, My Lord!
In another part of the piece I am shouting as loud as I can in harmony with
the other men, "Might- y God." It did not seem contrived. Mary had a Baby
has value. Mary experiences Dynamic Quality.
People experience Dynamic Quality. I do not think there is a person on the
list that cannot recount a similar experience. When the girl in Zen was
blocked, a narrowing of focus to one brick gave her the words. Thank you,
Mr. Pirsig, for a word to declare my experience of my value, Dynamic
Quality.
Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sam Norton" <elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 4:11 AM
Subject: Re: MD People and Value in the MOQ
> Hi Platt, MSH, Erin, Chuck, Dan, DM and DMB, with thanks for all the
> comments.
>
> Contrary to what DMB assumes I am genuinely interested in this question,
> and not just looking for a
> stick to beat the MoQ over the head with. If I can be persuaded that the
> MoQ does in fact allocate
> value to people as such, then that will be a significant step forward in
> my understanding of it, and
> that is a good thing. So in this post I am going to try and give as clear
> an account as I can of
> what I see as the problem, and then run through some of the recent
> replies.
>
> Platt quoted Pirsig, from the discussion of capital punishment in Chapter
> 13 of Lila:
>
> "What makes killing him immoral is that a criminal is not just a
> biological organism. He is not even
> just a defective unit of society. Whenever you kill a human being you are
> killing a source of
> thought too. A human being is a collection of ideas, and these ideas take
> moral precedence over a
> society. Ideas are patterns of value. They are at a higher level of
> evolution than social patterns
> of value. Just as it is more moral for a doctor to kill a germ than a
> patient, so it is more moral
> for an idea to kill a society than it is for a society to kill an idea.And
> beyond that is an even
> more compelling reason; societies and thoughts and principles themselves
> are no more than sets of
> static patterns. These patterns can't by themselves perceive or adjust to
> Dynamic Quality. Only a
> living being can do that."
>
> This quotation is part one of my problem. What Pirsig is sketching out
> here is a hierarchy of value,
> linked to the evolutionary scale, whereby those things which are more
> complex (on a higher level)
> are of more value than those which are simpler and on a lower level.
> Hence: "Just as it is more
> moral for a doctor to kill a germ than a patient, so it is more moral for
> an idea to kill a society
> than it is for a society to kill an idea."
>
> Part two of my problem can be spelt out by considering what Pirsig says in
> chapter 12, viz: " static
> patterns of value are divided into four systems: inorganic patterns,
> biological patterns, social
> patterns and intellectual patterns. They are exhaustive. That's all there
> are. If you construct an
> encyclopedia of four topics-Inorganic, Biological, Social and
> Intellectual-nothing is left out. No
> "thing," that is. Only Dynamic Quality, which cannot be described in any
> encyclopedia, is absent. "
>
> Putting these two things together, my original point was this: in
> considering a death, what is the
> 'worst thing' about it? Going from these two elements of the MoQ, ie the
> hierarchy of values, and
> the exhaustive nature of the levels, it seems to me that the worst thing
> about a death is twofold:
> one the loss of specific patterns of value on the intellectual level (call
> these IDEAS), the second
> the potential loss of DQ. Now the second part of that I don't see any way
> to quantify or discuss; it
> is inherently unknowable. So I'm ignoring it (for the time being).
>
> 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.
>
> 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?)
>
> Now Erin raised the legitimate query as to whether 'gestalt'
> considerations should be brought to
> bear, which, so far as I understand it, is a way of saying that all of
> reality ISN'T captured by the
> four levels (plus DQ - I won't keep saying that, please take it as read).
> In a similar vein David
> Morey said that "I think Sam's problem is solved if we look at how we
> value DQ and then link this to
> how we understand what we mean by human beings. I.e. a certain coming
> together of the 4 levels and
> DQ into an evolving pattern that is a greater whole, a microcosm." Now I
> think that this *would*
> represent an answer, but I think it goes against how the MoQ is
> constructed, ie part one above. That
> is, if we do take a gestalt/new pattern/composite approach, then this is
> some "thing" which is NOT
> captured by the four levels. It could well be that I am missing something
> here, but if so, then I
> think the consequences are rather disturbing, in that if we allow a
> composite pattern to hold here,
> then why not anywhere else, eg start to say that a city or a cow or a
> mathematical theory is
> composite in an analogous fashion? I'm interested to see if anyone wants
> to take this route.
>
> So, a restatement, in the interim: there is no 'thing' in the MoQ which
> can be recognised as
> corresponding to what we would normally refer to as 'Jane Doe'. There is
> no 'locus of value'
> corresponding to Jane Doe, and therefore, in considering what is bad about
> the murder of Jane Doe,
> according to the MoQ, the worst thing is the loss of the IDEAS in her
> head. Jane Doe does not have
> value in her own right, irrespective of those patterns of value of which
> she is composed, ie the
> biological life form, the social roles, and the intellectual IDEAS. The
> value of Jane Doe is
> derivative from those other patterns of value. 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?)
>
> Now to some more rhetorical/procedural points.
> Dan commented: "There seems an assumption behind the question that we
> (people) in some way give
> (assign) objects (people, in this case) value. I think the MOQ finds this
> assumption faulty. The MOQ
> says that people are the patterns, and that patterns are value. So it
> seems to me the MOQ doesn't
> give value to people, but rather the MOQ says that people ARE value."
>
> I don't think this is true as a description of my question, nor of the
> MoQ. Pirsig is quite happy
> for the attribution of value to be carried out - surely that's the whole
> point of claiming that
> morality is now on a scientific footing? - and it is merely a useful form
> of language. It is not
> that we generate the value by our description, but that we recognise the
> value which is present, in
> its static and dynamic aspects. Furthermore, where does it say that
> 'people are value'? I thought
> Pirsig said a) people are agglomerations of patterns of value; b) those
> patterns can be separately
> described; and c) the value of a 'person' is an illusion. Have I misread
> him?
>
> 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.
>
> See above, but consider this as an example. In the metaphysics of the Nazi
> ideology (if we can
> dignify it with such a description) the üntermensch were considered of low
> value, so Jews,
> homosexuals, gypsies etc were considered to be of less value than various
> Aryan exemplars. As far as
> I can tell, in the MoQ ideology, there are no 'people', there are only
> static patterns of value,
> which are arranged in a hierarchy. So IDEAS are the most important things,
> and other things (eg
> societies, biological life) are of less value.
>
> Let me put it like this, it is not that the MoQ GIVES or ASSIGNS value to
> people (or anything) it is
> that it is a description of what does or does not have value, and in the
> MoQ 'people' have no value
> (they do not exist, therefore they are precisely NOT a 'pattern of
> value'); whereas IDEAS etc do
> have value (do exist, are patterns of value). Is that clearer?
>
> 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)?
>
> Finally, DMB supported Dan's point and said "Sam's bad question is
> predicated on a misunderstanding.
> He's taken Pirsig's criticism of a particular conception of "self" and
> constued that to mean that
> human beings are irrelevant or whatever. This cuts against the "man is the
> measure of all things"
> attitude in Pirsig so profoundly that it strikes me as an entirely
> manufactured objection, one
> wholly without merit."
>
> This may well be true - and as I have said before, I'd be delighted if
> someone could show where I am
> in fact misunderstanding the MoQ on this - but DMB's comments haven't
> achieved that for me. DMB
> seems to be assuming the gestalt/composite point to be a true description
> of how the MoQ understands
> persons, but he hasn't argued for it, and I don't believe it to be
> compatible with part two of my
> problem.
>
> 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.
>
> But I could easily be wrong on this. Many thanks for the feedback.
>
> Sam
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