BOOK CLUB: Lila Part I (Patreon)

[Pictured: The Vanderbilt Mansion, Victorian Era castle on the Hudson River]

This is a discussion thread to post quotes and feelings and thoughts on the first part of Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals! I'll be responding to most comments.

A lot of ground is covered. Anthropology, Native Americans, Victorian morality, hot stoves, platypuses, metaphysics, a recap of the first book's main points, andA Brand New Plot!!!

[NOTE: I initially estimated that our Week 1 reading should be chapters 1-9. I think I made a mistake. Ch. 9 introduces some new ideas that I thought would be a good note to end on, but I feel I simply underestimated the wealth of the text from Ch. 1-8. It would be much better in my opinion to focus on the fresh questions/conflicts and the new anthropology lens, finishing out with the recap/expansion on Quality that happens in chapter 8. So I changed the schedule to reflect that, because trust me we'll have plenty of time to talk about the new Quality concepts as we press on.]

I'm focusing on the philosophy in my excerpts but have plenty of notes on the story/prose, so fire away in any direction!! 

Let's get into it!

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(Using the page numbers from the pdf digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 for easy access for everyone)

These were the underdogs, the outsiders, the pariahs, the sinners of his system. But the reason he was so concerned about them was that he felt the quality and strength of his entire system of organization depended on how he treated them. If he treated the pariahs well he would have a good system. If he treated them badly he would have a weak one. They could not be allowed to destroy all efforts at organization but he couldn't allow himself to forget them either. They just stood there, accusing, and he had to listen. (p. 26)

"So that's why I'm not objective about Indians," he said. "I believe in them and they believe in me and that makes all the difference." (p.32)

[The Entire Ten Bears Speech at the Medicine Lodge Council of 1867. Every time I read this speech I have to read it about 5 times in a row. It's just that beautifully/perfectly spoken.]

That idea that anthropology has no values Phaedrus marked down in his mind as the "spot." ...No values, huh? No Quality? This was the point of focus where he could begin an attack. (p.54)

Data without generalization is just gossip. (p. 55)

Metaphysics is what Aristotle called the First Philosophy. It's a collection of the most general statements of a hierarchical structure of thought... It asks such questions as, "Are the objects we perceive real or illusory?' Does the external world exist apart from our consciousness of it? Is reality ultimately reducible to a single underlying substance? If so, is it essentially spiritual or material?' Is the universe intelligible and orderly or incomprehensible and chaotic?" (p. 62)

Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is names about reality. Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty-thousand page menu and no food. (p. 63)

...a ruthless, doctrinaire avoidance of degeneracy is a degeneracy of another sort. That's the degeneracy fanatics are made of... Getting drunk and picking up bar-ladies and writing metaphysics is a part of life. (p. 65)

Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits on a hot stove will verify without any intellectual argument whatsoever that he is in an undeniably low-quality situation: that the value of his predicament is negative... Later the person may generate some oaths to describe this low value, but the value will always come first, the oaths second... The value is between the stove and the oaths. Between the subject and the object lies the value. This value is more immediate, more directly sensed than any "self" or any "object" to which it might be later assigned. It is more real than the stove. (p. 66)

[Rigel's entire speech at Phaedrus over breakfast about how Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was bullshit. Especially with the addition of the sincere advice about his isolationism and poor social skills tacked on at the end. Love it.] (I think this entire scene is very excellently written.)

Once you become a celebrity it satisfies some people to try to tear you down, and there's not much you can do about it. (p. 86)

He remembered elderly Victorians who had been nice to him as a child. It was a niceness that set him on edge. They were trying to improve him. It was expected that he would benefit from their attention. (p. 95)

Most empiricists deny the validity of any knowledge gained through imagination, authority, tradition, or purely theoretical reasoning. They regard fields such as art, morality, religion, and metaphysics as unverifiable. The Metaphysics of Quality varies from this by saying that the values of art and morality and even religious mysticism are verifiable, and that in the past they have been excluded for metaphysical reasons, not empirical reasons. They have been excluded because of the metaphysical assumption that all the universe is composed of subjects and objects and anything that can't be classified as a subject or an object isn't real. There is no empirical evidence for this assumption at all. It is just an assumption. (p. 99)

The Metaphysics of Quality can explain subject-object relationships beautifully but, as Phaedrus had seen in anthropology, a subject-object metaphysics can't explain values worth a damn. It has always been a mess of unconvincing psychological gibberish when it tries to explain values. (p. 100)

This problem of trying to describe value in terms of substance has been the problem of a smaller container trying to contain a larger one. Value is not a subspecies of substance. Substance is a subspecies of value. When you reverse the containment process and define substance in terms of value the mystery disappears: substance is a "stable pattern of inorganic values." The problem then disappears. The world of objects and the world of values is unified. (p. 100)

[The Platypus bit. All of it. You better remember it if you've read it.]

In the Metaphysics of Quality "causation" is a metaphysical term that can be replaced by "value." To say that "A causes B" or to say that "B values precondition A" is to say the same thing. The difference is one of words only. Instead of saying "A magnet causes iron fillings to move toward it," you can say "Iron fillings value movement toward a magnet... The only difference between causation and value is that the word "cause" implies absolute certainty whereas the implied meaning of "value" is one of preference. (p. 104)

Phaedrus saw that the "value" which directed subatomic particles is not identical with the "value" a human being gives to a painting. But he saw that the two are cousins, and that the exact relationship between them can be defined with great precision. Once this definition is complete a huge integration of the humanities and sciences appears in which platypi fall by the hundreds. Thousands. (p. 105)

Once a thief is caught a whole string of crimes is often solved. <3 (p. 106)

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Now please oh please provide your oh so valuable thoughts and feelings down below, like paintings in a gallery. No single absolute truth in mind, just many valid excellences for different moments.