{Platt}
> I think religious feelings, especially those that pertain to morality,
> stem from the inseparabilty of experience from value, as the MOQ
> posits.
> The value distinctions of good and evil are part and parcel of
> experience
> itself, beginning in the womb (as Pirsig describes in Lila, chapter 9.)
> After birth every experiencing moment goes hand in hand with a value
> decision, most of them subconscious and thus felt intuitively. From
> that
> subliminal source emerged the notion of a supernatural moral authority.
> It
> took the MOQ to reveal that what people worshipped was the same as
> their
> primary experience. The MOQ broke the news that man's "soul" as defined
> by
> religious teaching is simply another name for Quality.
[Willblake2]
> Yup, sounds good to me. One problem I have (and I am rereading Lila,
> now), is whether Quality is monistic or pluralistic, or should be
> described with these limitations. I get the sense that like the Tao, it
> is the source of all.
As I interpret it, Quality is both monistic and pluralistic, both the
source of all and the source of none. It's only dualism, made for the sake
of creating and conveying the MOQ to S/O-saturated thinking humans, is
static/Dynamic.
> If this is indeed true then I have a problem with
> free will. As William James expresses in The writings of William James
> (J. J. McDermott (ed) 1977 U of Chicago Press, pp 258-270), monism has
> many negative consequences philosophically, one being the sense of
> freedom.
Pirsig addresses the problem of free will in Lila, Chapter 12. "To the
extent that one's behavior is controlled by static patterns of quality it
is without choice. But to the extent that one follows Dynamic Quality,
which is undefinable, one's behavior is free."
> In MoQ is there a separate entity which is making decisions
> based on Quality? This is not a trap, I am just learning.
As I see it you and I and all individuals are what we might in S/O terms
call "units of experience" or "expressions of Quality" (in religious terms
souls or spirits or lights) with the capability of responding to that
aspect of Quality Pirsig calls Dynamic -- the life force. So no separate
entity making decisions. Whatever Quality is you are it.
Regards,
Platt
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