From: Case (Case@iSpots.com)
Date: Sat Nov 19 2005 - 21:27:37 GMT
[Platt]
Case,
Thanks for a interesting response.
[Case]
Thanks, Platt I actually think it is better to be interesting than right,
lol.
>[Case]
>One level does not arise, then divorce itself from levels under it.
[Platt]
I don't think Pirsig ever claimed that a level divorces itself from levels
under it. The clearest explanation of his position that I can find appeared
in his SODV paper: (emphasis added)
"In the block diagram of the Metaphysics of Quality we see that each higher
level of evolution rests on and is supported by the next lower level of
evolution and CANNOT DO WITHOUT IT. There is no intellect that can
independently reach and make contact with inorganic patterns. It must go
through both society and biology to reach them. In the past science has
insisted on the necessity of biological proofs, that is, proofs in terms of
sense data, and it has tried to discard social patterns as a source of
scientific knowledge. When Bohr says we are suspended in language I think he
means you cannot get rid of the social contexts either."
[Case]
I have no problem with talking about Levels in metaphorical terms. After all
every college catalog I have even seen divides the subject matter up in this
way. But the MoQ seems to elevate this to a set of articles of faith. My
other problem with it is, it seems to have no real practicle application.
All of the discussions I have read in the MD have almost scrupulously
avoided anything close to the concrete. It is mostly about the social and
intellectual levels and how to define terms that might apply to one or the
other.
What I want to know, for example, is what level would one place a
corporation or a government into. And having located them in a level would
they be considered separate species or members of the same species. This
kind of anaysis would at least put the levels to good use. It would let us
look at how what we have discovered about biology would apply to a higher
level. It has been suggested that bee colonies and ant hills can be regarded
as individuals in their own right with the ants and bees functioning more
like cells. Aren't companies, governments and churches analagous to this?
Don't these institutions live or die according to the same ecological rules
that govern biological life forms? If corporations, governments churches and
the like can be regarded as entities in this way do they constitute a fifth
level?
This of course is just me yammering on but I find these much more
interesting questions than whether or not intellect and consciousness can be
defined.
[Case]
> The issue of divine intervention is of course a perennial one.
> Buckminster Fuller said once said, "Sometimes I think we're alone.
> Sometimes I think we're not. Either way, the implications are
> staggering." I think the same applies to creation. There is no
> discontinuity in our present understand of origins.
[Platt]
Not sure what you mean by "no discontinuity." Are not the origins of the
universe, life and mind still much debated with no causative agents yet
identified that lend themselves to repeatable experiment or falsification?
[Case]
The origins of the universe still seem to be a bit up in the air but things
are pretty well laid out after the first umpteen billionth of a second
after. The period before that or the cause of it, may be disputed in some
abstract way but that is the only disconnect I can see. But that is really a
matter of the first and most serious philosophical question: Why is there
something instead of nothing.
[Platt]
Is Ra the Egyptian "father of Gods?"
Are you suggesting that the sun's rays are the cause of our moral sense? I
suppose one could argue that without the sun we wouldn't be here and
therefore it must be the prime cause. But, the same could be said about the
Big Bang that eventually caused our sun, along with a billion or so others.
And then you have to ask, "What caused the Big Bang?" and you're off to the
races of infinite regress beyond the limits of "natural" explanations.
[Case]
I have to point you back to the great Sage Joni Mitchell for that one: "We
are star dust we are golden and we've got to get ourselves back to the
garden." Personally I have no desire to search for a first cause I am happy
with: "Its turtles all the way down." But I think the importance of sunlight
can not be overstated. Photons are converted to chemical energy and it is
the convnersion and exchange of this energy that gives rise to life on
Earth.
One can look at all of the 'coincidences that give rise to life here now and
claim that are to overwhelming to be just coinsidence. Or one can look at
the universe as a probability distribution as I have argued in another
thread. If you imagine the immense amounts of time and space and matter that
seem to be around us, having something as improbably as this world of ours
does not seem all that far fetched, to me at least. I think it only seems
farfetched when viewed from the rather limited perspective of 21st century
ape descendants.
As for our sense of morals that seems rather like the idea that the rules of
chess can't be predicted from the laws of physics. Although I think all
morality is rather easily derived from biology.
[Case]
> For me at least the real issue with regards to naturalism vs
> spiritualism is that most of the qualities the spiritualist ascribes
> to God are now ours or certainly within our grasp. We can control our
> environment to the point that we can destroy it. We can manipulate
> life processes, create new life forms, even whole new kinds of beings
> from computer viruses to corporations. We recreate the world in our
> own image. We create new worlds of imagination.
[Platt]
You may be right, but I think we're a long way from creating universes such
as the one we inhabit much less destroying our own planet.
[Case]
True at least with regard to scale but most industrized humans live in
enviroments almost entirely of our own construction. Plants in cities are
purely ornamental and animals are either pets or pests. Children grow up
believing milk occurs naturally in cartons and burgers start out frozen.
I am a card carrying tree hugger so lets not go there, but I also grew up
during the cold war when there was never a doubt that we were capable of
destroying all life on the planet with just a wrong number to the red phone.
[Case]
> Certainly most religions attempt to show how man is created in Gods
> image, or perhaps how God is created in ours. I find this attempt to
> project ourselves into nature misguided. We introduce purpose into the
> universe and the universe was doing fine before we got here and will
> do find if we elect to leave. Purpose is so central to what we are
> that we can not imagine a world without it. But the real question
> isn't what would God do, it is what are we going to do now that we are
> Gods. Your term betterness can only mean better for us.
[Platt]
Since we as much a part of nature as rocks and trees and the weather, and
since we exhibit purpose I don't see much of leap to suggest nature is
purposeful. I would ask, "What is the purpose of saying nature has no
purpose?"
While I don't agree we are Gods, I do agree the term betterness means better
for you and me and the man behind the tree, not for the pleasure of a being
somewhere over the rainbow.
[Case]
What I am getting at is that we are acquiring godlike powers. It is a bit
like Arthur C. Clarke's famous saying, "Any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic." I would prefer to avoid purpose because I
don't think the concept adds to our understanding. I think it is ultimately
a kind of Freudian projection of our own desires onto Nature. I also see it
as wishful thinking in the same way I think conspiracy theorists are
optimists. There is this nagging hope that it all means something and that
someone in charge. The alternative is that no one is in charge and all is
chaos. I actually believe the later and am scared spitless. I am very much
the exsitentialist in this respect and think the sooner we face the facts,
the sooner we can actually find a purpose and run with it.
[Case]
> I embrace your definition of miracle, btw. You mention a list of
> events for which perfectly natural explanations exist and still call them
miraculous.
> They are that and beautiful as well. Even if no Gods are responsible
> for their existence it seems to me that WE have some responsibility of
> their future.
[Platt]
I don't know about the existence of natural explanations for occurrences
such as something from nothing, life from no-life, and mind from no-mind.
My education is obviously not complete. But I agree with the beauty of those
events, suggesting to me at any rate a divine presence. Otherwise I can't
think of any reason for beauty to be part of our world.
[Case]
As far as the something from nothing thing I am with you there. I think the
explaination for the existance of life is pretty straightforward. I am not
even sure what mind is but I suspect it has something to do with dimensions
and fields. As for beauty I think that is all us. It is a property of humans
not of nature itself. Kind of like the semiotic business.
Anyway thanks Platt, it is a pleasure not talking politics with you. You
actually seem reasonable at times. (poke, poke)
Case
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