At 01:15 AM 10/23/2008, you wrote:
Greetings, Zenith [Platt quoted] --
[LILA, Chpt. 12]:
- "The 'Laws of Nature' are moral laws." (Free Will?)
[Zenith]:
I would not consider this to be about free will.
The Laws of Nature, such that govern the movement of atoms,
are moral laws in the sense that they involve value-sensibility
that, as Ham points out, Pirsig allows even to objective
phenomena like atoms. I think Pirsig is reiterating the idea that
Quality can be sensed even by inorganic objects. The laws of
entropy, of gravity, of thermodynamics are best described by
saying that heat "likes" to dissipate or that objects "like" to
exert forces on one another.
In the paragraph that precedes these statements, Pirsig writes: "The
Metaphysics of Quality says that if
moral judgments are essentially assertions of value and if value is
the fundamental ground-stuff of the world, then moral judgments are
the fundamental ground-stuff of the world."
This is another example of a syllogism with an undistributed
middle. But, irrespective of the false logic, "moral judgments" are
made by conscious individuals, not by the world. It is man's
intellect that impugns morality to the universe and "asserts" that
this is value. Electrons and moons are not held to their orbits by
"preference" or "value" but by electro-mechanical or gravitational
attraction. Heat doesn't dissipate because "it likes to." This
kind of thinking is neither philosophical nor scientific; it's
childish animism based on a naive interpretation of physical behavior.
Platt quotes the author of Lila's Child as saying: "I think the
answer is that inorganic objects experience events but do not react
to them biologically socially or intellectually. They react to
these experiences inorganically, according to the laws of
physics." This conclusion doesn't rectify Pirsig's fallacy. Again,
it is pure animism. Unrealized value is a logical absurdity. There
is no experience without sensible awareness. And awareness isn't
biological, social or intellectual - it's psychic, subjective, and
without an existential referent. We're talking about experiential
(SOM) reality here, not metaphysics, and we cannot describe our
"real world" of relational existence in any other terms than
subject/object experience.
The "essence" of reality is something else, possibly another issue
for discussion. But MoQers make the mistake of confusing the two by
defining physical reality as Value, Quality, Morality, or Intellect,
all of which are subjective constructs. That's man's role, not Nature's.
Thanks for trying to reconcile my cosmology with Platt's response,
Zenith. However, I fear that never the twain shall meet.
Essentially yours,
Ham
Ham,
You wrote, "That's man's role, not Nature's."
I think it's a pattern called 'man's nature'.
Marsha
---------------------
- "Chemistry professors smoke pipes and go to movies because irresistible
cause-and-effect forces of the cosmos force them to do so." (Determinism?)
----------------------
I imagine its a standard definition of determinism
----------------------
- "We can just as easily deduce the morality of atoms from the observation
that chemistry professors are, in general, moral." (Then comes the
syllogism to "prove" it.)
With all due respect to the author, this is nonsense. First of all, Pirsig
himself as much as tells us that experience creates our reality, which
suggests that any Free Will or Determinism perceived in existence is an
attribution by the cognizant subject. What must occur before the experience
of process and causes is individuated awareness and its sense of Value.
Pirsig calls this sensibility "pre-intellectual experience", but he does not
posit it as proprietary to the subject. In fact, he gives as much
value-sensibility to atoms and other objective phenomena as he gives to the
individual who observes them. If man is not a free agent, where is the Free
Will? Whose will is it that creates the universe? Obviously, Pirsig wants
to be on the side of the objectivists who claim that everything is the
result of cause-and-effect determinism.
[Platt]:
The premise is accepted by many physicists who believe all is
simply different forms of energy. That's at the root of Pirsig's
criticism of SOM. How does "everything is different forms of
energy" explain quality? In fact, how does it explain "different
forms?" (That's when "oops" comes in.) As for configuring
atoms of a person, I'm sure you're familiar with, "Beam me up,
Scotty." Fiction now, but who knows?
[Ham] Apart from the "oops" factor and the fact that the MoQ is a
metaphorical
representation of physical existence, do you really believe that a human
being is no more than a particular arrangement of atoms or energy patterns?
--------------
Someone once said that the most amazing thing about the universe is
that it is at all intelligible. The "oops" factor, emergent
properties, patterns, Quality... could they be the same?
As for a person being "nothing more" than an arrangement of atoms
or energy patterns, well, why not? Isn't a sculpture of an elephant
"nothing more" than an arrangement of stone or welded metal or
whatever? But no, its also art! A person is also character, spirit, soul!
The key word is "arrangement." Therein lies the magic. As Craig
pointed out, "the MoQ LEVELS address this issue." On the inorganic
level, all we are is stardust. Only on a higher level do things
like personality and social status come into play. Sorry, that's what I think!
Do your worst,
Zenith
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The Universe is uncaused, like a net of jewels in which each is a
reflection of all the others in a fantastic, interrelated harmony without end.
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