[Krimel] > And I would simply say, "The universe doesn't "know" anything and is > a-moral."
[Platt] I would be interested to know if you find anything false or objectionable in the following passages from Pirsig in Chapter 22 of Lila: [Krimel] Just as consciousness emerges from biological system so to can morality. It does not need to be built into the framework of the universe itself to command our attention. Morality in a larger sense is derived from biology and evolution to support human life. Certain aspects of morality do appear to be universal among human which implies to me a biological root. For example "tit for tat" or "do unto others as they do unto you." A fairly long list of such universal moral concerns might be constructed but must be considered in terms of the functions served. The specific expressions of morality are what get people in trouble in cross cultural situations as it is easy for us to confuse the form in which morality is express with the function it serves. A glaring example would be how different cultures express reverence for the dead. In some cultures the dead are buried in others they may be eaten. But societies are expressing respect for the dead but my find the specific practices mutually disgusting. Morality at the level of atoms at least a Pirsig describes it has nothing whatever to do with morality as social custom. Morality in terms of cultural practice is relative to the culture that upholds it. It serves the needs of the people that practice it. It expresses their shared values. Such morality does not need to be a property of TiTs or the universe as a whole. But this does not deny that morals are vital to human culture. Furthermore morality and the affect of social situations has a rich literature that shows both within and across culture how individual behavior is influenced by the presence or absence of other. The specific expressions of morality across cultures do have an arbitary character to them. Monogamy and polygamy for example have both been widely used by different cultures. They both are effective ways to raise a healthy new generation but which technique a society employs depends on history and circumstance. While history and circumstance vary from people to people the functional need to rear children does not. So while I agree that the universe is purposeless I deny that we are. I would also deny that science in anyway claims that individuals are isolated in the way Pirsig describes and I think he may be confusing the arbitrary expressions of morality with the functions served. ---------------------------------------------------------------- "From the perspective of a subject-object science, the world is a completely purposeless, valueless place. There is no point in anything. Nothing is right and nothing is wrong. Everything just functions, like machinery. There is nothing morally wrong with being lazy, nothing morally wrong with lying, with theft, with suicide, with murder, with genocide. There is nothing morally wrong because there are no morals, just functions." "Everyone seemed to be guided by an "objective," "scientific" view of life that told each person that his essential self is his evolved material body. Ideas and societies are a component of brains, not the other way around. No two brains can merge physically, and therefore no two people can ever really communicate except in the mode of ship's radio operators sending messages back and forth in the night. A scientific, intellectual culture had become a culture of millions of isolated people living and dying in little cells of psychic solitary confinement, unable to talk to one another, really, and unable to judge one another because scientifically speaking it is impossible to do so. Each individual in his cell of isolation was told that no matter how hard he tried, no matter how hard he worked, his whole life is that of an animal that lives and thinks like any other animal. He could invent moral goals for himself, but they are just artificial inventions. Scientifically speaking he has no goals." Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
