From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Wed May 21 2003 - 19:46:31 BST
Hi Bob,
> No, I have not yet read Pirsigıs books.
That's a shame.
>My wife is hard at work trying to
> convince me I should.
I hope she is successful, and I hope you then decide to join our discussion.
>I have a deep suspicion about anyoneıs claims that
> ultimate truth can be found within the covers of any book (not excluding the
> Bible or Koran or the Oxford English Dictionary).
That sounds like a very healthy suspicion. I wouldn't expect to find the
answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything in
Pirsig's books, either.
>If you are interested, there
> are a few I can recommend which posit some tentative guides to the land where
> truth might be found.
I am interested. I've been thinking about my summer reading list.
What "land of truth" are you referring to?
> First, "am I a scientist"? You could mean many things with this question. I
> have had a lifelong interest in certain sciences (evolution, how the mind
> works, anthropology, communications and some others), but I do not earn a
> living by being a scientist. If that, in your judgment, disqualifies me,
> thatıs really your problem.
I think you took my question the wrong way. The hope in this discussion is
that all of our contributions to the list will be measured according to
their quality of thought irrespective of the credentials of the thinker.
I was just curious about your background. (I'm a high school teacher, by
the way.) I wasn't questioning your scientific knowledge. I know that the
explanation you gave is the one that is widely accepted in scientific
circles and accepted though misunderstood by the majority of non-Bible
thumpers everywhere. (Many will say, for example, that they believe in
Darwinian evolution but think that God guides evolution, not realizing that
they have just contradicted themselves.)
Actually, the only requirement for participating in this discussion is to
have read Pirsig's books, which makes me somewhat hesitant to engage with
you at this point.
>Science, both the process and the current results,
> are a love of my life.
I share your interested in science, but I don't consider it a complete
description of reality. Any explanation that claims to be a complete
description of the universe, however, would certainly have to include the
results of science.
>But no, I cannot tell you the purpose of gravity,
> except to say that it is what keeps me from being, willy-nilly, a dead space
> traveler.
My point was to to drive home that to ask about the purpose of anything is
to step outside the scientific perspective that attempts to be objective.
Science doesn't say that evolution and gravity have no purpose. On the
contrary, to ask about purpose is simply not a scientific question. You may
as well ask what gravity's favorite color is.
Physical laws only describe how things behave. A scientist can ask "what
does it do?" but not "why does it do that?" The first question is objective
and can be studied from outside. The second is subjective and can only be
answered from within.
>
> Does evolution have a purpose and is it directed? My answer is no to both. And
> my answer comes, at least in the beginning, from persons whose learning and
> wisdom I respect, but more importantly, from a careful consideration of what
> evolution is. If directed, who is the director, and what is his/her ultimate
> goal? Believing that evolution is directed is a very human conclusion intended
> to help us believe that we are the kings of creation, and therefore endowed
> with power over all other life forms and natural resources. It is a
> self-fulfilling sort of answer, by which we deny that we are only one of many
> equally righteous species inhabiting, by chance, this planet. 65 million years
> ago a 7 mile diameter rock hit the planet. The results wiped out the dinosaurs
> (except for the birds, the smaller of whom survived), who had reigned for 250
> million years as the lords of creation. Had chance taken that rock past Earth,
> the top species on earth today might well be intelligent, tool-using and
> tool-making descendants of the dinosaurs.
>
Do you really think that you are no better than a dandelion? Would
everything be better if we only realized that nothing is better than
anything else? If only, like science, we all valued not having values...?
> Do you also believe that dice are directed and have a purpose? What room is
> there in your world for accident? Has anyone in your world been snatched away
> from you by sudden, accidental death? Was there a purpose for that accident?
> And who "caused" the accident?
I don't look to a God that is external to the universe to explain such
things if that's what you mean.
As for whether dice have a purpose, consider the following:
Suppose 50% of a large population prefer chocolate ice cream and 50% prefer
vanilla. If I select a person from this population and offer him ice cream,
the selection he makes will fit the concept of probability.
I could use a random number table or flip a coin to mathematically model the
situation. But that doesn't mean that the choice itself was random. If
you ask the person why he chose what he did, he will say that he chose it
because he prefers it.
The scientist studies selections and describes them objectively, but
whatever is making the selection has a completely different perspective.
From the scientific objective point of view, preference looks like a
statistical tendency. More universal preferences look like causes. The
objective perspective can't see values. (As Hume pointed out, you actually
can't see "causes" either.)
Back to the dice. The point is that if you want to know if the dice have a
purpose, you'd have to ask the dice. If it sounds silly, then un-ask the
question. It certainly can't be answered objectively.
> Randomness is a well-accepted part of our universe. (It is not a cause for
> anything. It is a characteristic of events.)
As you suggest, it is a description, not an explanation.
Randomness is a concept, a mental construct. It is not part of objective
reality. It is an element of some of the most useful models we have
constructed to try to understand the universe. But don't confuse scientific
models of reality with reality itself.
>Heisenbergıs Uncertainty
> Principle comes into play here. You can know the direction OR velocity of any
> electron. You canıt know both values at any moment of time.
Again, "it's random" looks more and more like "I don't know." In this case
Heisenberg further said that we can't know. This is a limit of scientific
inquiry, not a characteristic of the objective world it studies. It also
suggests that objectivity itself ultimately fails.
(Do you want to know if Schroedinger's Cat is dead or alive? It's simple.
Just ask the cat.)
>It was a fond hope
> of scientists in the eighteenth century that given a large enough supply of
> "calculators" (however you define these), we would be able to predict the
> entire future of the universe, but this one physical truth (noone has ever
> refuted Heisenberg) makes that impossible. Certainty died, and in its place we
> live with probabilities. To look for certainty in a universe built on chaos,
> self-organization, chance, randomness and just plain accident, is a sure
> recipe for poor mental health.
Pirsig offers a third alternative to randomness v determinism. You'll have
to read his books.
Regards,
Steve
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