On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 9:13 AM, Arlo Bensinger <[email protected]> wrote:
[John] Quality makes us invent earth. Arlo's happy. [Arlo] Arlo dislikes this metaphor. Quality does not "make" us do anything. We are free to respond TO Quality. Sure, as I agreed with Mark, there is what others have called "structuration" here, but there is not coercion. John] I agree to an extent, and disagree to an extent. For instance, gravity coerces us downward, but its nothing personal. We can jump up. We can even fly. We can go to the moon where it's not as strong. Likewise we can be "bad", but we suffer the logical consequences of going against the fundamental metaphysical reality of the cosmos. What was the name of the boat Lila came in on? Oh yeah... [John] Quality makes gods, now Arlo's pissed. > [Arlo] > Arlo has already stated his personal love for mythology, and the value he > finds in esoteric/gnostic/metaphoric reads of the stories of man. But again, > Quality does not "make" gods. MAN makes GODS in response to Quality. > > What Arlo IS pissed about, is the effort to make Quality INTO a god. Well, > not pissed, call it "aggressively cautious". > > Fair enough. John agrees with Arlo on that point, for sure. Religion of any stripe is a social-level phenomena and discussions of Quality are of the 4th level. To subvert Quality to God is highly immoral. > [John] > > There's only one thing in Pirsig's list that Arlo is not willing to call > real. > > [Arlo] > That's inane. Trees are biological patterns of value. God is a social > pattern of value. I don't call one "real" and the other "not real", I call > them both "patterns of value that emerge in response to Quality". > > I guess the point of my objection is that you seem to treat trees and rocks and such objectively, but disparage God as not objectively existing. Which might be a valid conclusion if you made a valid argument. But since you start from that stance on assumption, and a dogmatically asserted assumption at that, I feel it's just another way of imposing a 3rd level religious stance upon a 4th level discussion. The way it seems to me is you assign atheism a higher moral value than theism, like the former is intellectual and the latter is social. But that is not a valid conclusion. A true objective discussion begins open-mindedly from the metaphysically given, rather than the emotionally attached dogmas. > [John] > > I think Arlo has a grudge. But how can you have a grudge against something > that doesn't exist? > > [Arlo] > Arlo thinks John is being absurd, but has seen this predictable apologist > rhetoric here before. How could Arlo hold a grudge against the Mythos? > > [John] > > I think Arlo is confused. > > [Arlo] > Arlo knows he is not, and asks you to actually read what he says now and > then. > > Every word, Arlo. I don't skip, although I do skim. So there's reading, and then there's thinking. I like your words, they make me think. One thing I think is that we're closer to agreement than our antagonism indicates. I'm off for the weekend to visit my girls, I'll be thinking! > 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/ > 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/
