Hey Ham,
[Platt]
> > I don't know why you warn us against a philosopher who
> > attempts to answer the "ought" question. Isn't that what
> > philosophers are supposed to do -- offer some guidance
> > on how to live a worthwhile life?
[Ham]
> Guidance on how we can live a worthwhile life is one thing. Preaching
> what
> we ought to do is telling us what is right and wrong. That is coercive
> and
> immoral because it violates the principle of individual freedom. It's up
> to
> us to discern what is good and bad, or as Andre just wrote, "to walk the
> bridge."
Unlike your friendly government bureaucrat, the philosopher doesn't carry a
gun at her side. Thus, we are free to reject a philosopher's advice. But, I
think it's safe to assume you and I will protect a philosopher's right to
speak. Not so with the radical left crowd on campus who, encouraged by
liberal professors, physically assault speakers they disagree with while
the administration stands idly by.
> [Andre]:
> > You can kick against anything you have no direct control over
> > but as Pirsig says, the good starts in your heart, then in your
> > head and then flows through your hands, from the internal to
> > the external (eternal) through the Tao (which literally means
> 'bridge').
> >
> > Static patterns do not afford us freedom, only DQ, the
{skip}> > undifferentiated aesthetic continuum, can do this. It is up to
us
> > to walk the bridge wisely.
[Ham]
> Substitute "Value" for "DQ" and Andre has nailed it. Why do you think we
> are all perplexed by our ignorance of right and wrong?
I'm not in the least perplexed by right and wrong, especially now that I
have Pirsig's rational moral hierarchy as a guide.
[Platt]
> > Well, there you go. Your answer to the "ought" question:
> > act as you want within the moral guidelines established by
> > individual preferences of the group you are part of. Of course
> > that begs the question, "What do you do when you disagree
> > with your group?" Individuals who have marched to a different
> > drummer have often been the evolutionary movers and shakers.
[Ham]
> I think you've just answered your own question, Platt. When you go
> "against
> the goup" you are creating something new. In fact, this is the ONLY way
> one
> can move human culture. From Copernicus to Einstein, Galileo to Newton,
> Bach to Beethoven, every significant advance in science, philosophy and
> the
> arts has started with an individual defying the collective standard. It's
> called "individualism", Platt, and I know it's something you firmly
> believe
> in.
Right you are. So I wonder why you place so much emphasis on groupthink
morality.
> What I can't understand is why you attribute valuistic decisions of
> breakthrough proportions to inanimate "patterns of reality" instead of the
> individual subjects responsible for them.
> > It makes sense to me and I deny the subjectivity of
> > value sensibility. Why? Because such valuations occur
> > before any word-thoughts such as brain, awareness,
> > environment, unconscious or subjectivity. Such words and
> > concepts are themselves the result of immediate, ineffable
> > valuations. Reality is not the words but what happens
> > before you can think of the words to describe reality.
> "Word-thoughts" or not, valuation is the realization of cognizant PEOPLE,
> Platt. Inanimate objects don't evaluate. (At least they didn't before
> RMP
> planted this myth in our minds.)
There are two kinds of so-called "inanimate" objects -- things like atoms
which
exhibit prehensions of their environment and things like rocks which don't.
A rock is not influenced internally by the presence of another rock or
anything else. Not so for a particle in an atom or an atom in a molecule or
a
molecule in a cell or a cell in a brain. These objects evaluate their
surroundings
and respond according to their nature. Nothing mythical about their
behavior
based on their own, if limited, "sensibility." In fact, particles, atoms,
molecules, cells -- the building blocks of the world -- are anything but
"inanimate."
> Don't let the labels confuse you. You
> are
> the Knower of what you value, whether you call it awareness,
> consciousness,
> or sensibility. Do you deny that the values you realize are subjective?
Yes.
> If
> so, pray tell me what "subjective" means to you.
"Subjective" means nothing to me without its companion "objective." They
are inseparable simultaneous dualities. But they are merely word-thoughts,
not reality. Or perhaps we can call them second-order reality that comes
after first-order reality -- the ineffable "value sense" that you and I
share with every quantum particle.
With thanks for your patience,
Platt
>
> (I'll take up the issue of Islam's "flourishing civilization" later.)
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