From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Jun 10 2003 - 14:04:10 BST
Hi Johnny,
> Why isn't SOM allowed to have Quality at the top, too? There has to be
> something at the top.
Because to those with the SOM outlook, values are always subjective, never
objective.
> I account for time by substituting the
> word Expectation for Quality, expectation contains the same moral push to
> the future that DQ does, but connects it explicitly with OUR expectation,
> it doesn't leave it otherworldly and undefined but puts it squarely in our
> world and visible.
Visible? I've never seen an expectation.
> > If you can invent an instrument that will detect
> >a moral, please let me know so I can invest all my money in it. :-)
> There will be lots of references to tangible things. Too many, maybe. You
> can't get away from all the references. You aren't using the right kind of
> instruments. You can't detect an amoeba with a culture, and you can't
> detect a moral with a microscope. But you CAN detect a moral with a
> culture, that's what cultures are - moral detectors.
Is it your view that cultures determine what is moral and that if a
culture approves of human sacrifice that human sacrifice is moral? If not,
why not?
> > > Yes, but they were put there by real things which are visible if you
> > > look in the right place.
> >Show me.
> http://www.zpub.com/un/pope/papaeast.jpg
> http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fatherknows/fatherknowsIMAGE/fath
> erknows.jpg http://www.bradyworld.com/art/photo.gif
> http://www.jonathanedwards.com/images/jesml.jpg
I asked you to show me a moral. You showed me a pope, a preacher and a
couple of actors playing fathers. To suggest that a moral is a particular
person strikes me as rather odd. I would never think of greeting my dad by
saying, "Hi moral man" or describing the pope as the "moral potentate."
Anyway, your examples assume morality is something that applies only to
human relationships. Pirsig suggests morality applies to everything.
> >Language doesn't give value. Value is inherent in things. DQ doesn't give
> >purpose. DQ is a symbol for the force that creates things and makes them
> >better.
>
> You are using vivid SOM language here: "Value is inherent in things"? "DQ
> is a symbol"? I assume you mean value is inherent in quality, in morality.
No, I meant what I said. I don't know what you mean by "SOM language."
I thought I was writing in English.
> >Patterns of value are "real things." Whether people should respect people
> >more depends I think on whom you designate as deserving more respect. I
> >don't give a blank respect check to everyone.
>
> Don't you have to jump back into SOM to say that? If you stay in MoQ land,
> respect becomes just a pattern given to a pattern by a pattern, and it's
> hard to see the difference between patterns, until you convert them to
> subjects and objects.
Your mindset seems to be that if I call a bear a bear I'm in the real
world of SOM but if I call it a pattern of values I'm in fantasy world of
MoQ. Words are merely symbols pointing to the experience. I'm sure you're
familiar with the following:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
You can say "bear" and think of a large furry creature with big teeth and bad
breath, or as a character in a children's book called "Pooh," or as pattern of
biological morality. Whatever, the word "bear" can't tear your arm off.
> >In MoQ, pain hurts. It's low quality.
> A low quality experience doesn't matter to the pattern feeling it, because
> it's just a pattern, pain is just a pattern. Nothing hurts because nothing
> matters to the temporary patterns. It is a great ascetic and peaceful and
> wise understanding of the world, and allows monks to calmly immolate
> themselves famously, but I'd rather feel pain and be me, not a pattern.
Guess we're going to find it necessary to agree on what we mean by
"pattern." For me, a pattern is any meaningful arrangement of elements.
So, you and I and everybody else are identifiable patterns, sharing a
common pattern of humanity that feels joy and pain.
> >As for culture really existing, SOM isn't
> >as sure as you seem to be. As Pirsig observes:
>
> >"Some anthropologists were saying a culture is the essence of
> >anthropology. Some were saying there isn't any such thing as a culture.
> >Some were saying it's all history, some said it's all structure. Some said
> >it's all function. Some said it was all values. Some, following Boas's
> >scientific purity said there were no values at all." (4)
>
> I think if we can infer quarks and gravity and other things that SOM has a
> little trouble seeing directly, we can infer culture exists by seeing
> buildings and roads and road signs and newspapers.
I agree with you. But not all anthropologists who study such things do.
> >Being lazy is morally wrong for a very rational reason. If you want to eat
> >and live, you have to work. To survive you need need food, shelter and
> >clothing. Those value patterns don't fall into your lap.
>
> We could be slothful. We could still be living short hungry lives and not
> working very hard. Americans work more hours than Europeans, and there are
> some cultures where hardly anyone works ever. Is rationality different in
> different places? Or is culture different in different places?
What cultures do you know where hardly anyone works ever? Even a chimp
"culture" has to work to find food.
> Actually, those value patterns did fall into our laps. You were never a
> baby Platt? No one ever fed, sheltered and clothed you? We learned an
> expected standard of living as babies - our expectations were implanted in
> us before we had a chance to consider any other expectations.
Expectations do not a standard of living make. Work does. In the "real
world" somebody has to work to keep you alive. :-)
Platt
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