Hettinger (hettingr@iglou.com)
Tue, 18 Nov 1997 06:09:47 +0100
Ken Clark wrote:
> I just got back from Texas and found all of this discussion on my screen.
> With regard to yours and Bodvar's meme discussion. Could it be that Richard
> Dawkins has just shown us the little figure in the landscape that is
> shoveling the sand into piles. The little figure that Pirsig says everybody
> overlooks. I haven't read the book either but this sounds like a complete
> thought to me. It certainly tallies with Lames Lovelock's idea of Gaia.
Hi Ken, and welcome!
You know, that image from ZMM (page 76, paperback), the one of the little
figure in the landscape sorting sand was one of the most powerful concepts I
remember from my early readings of the book. I hadn't thought of it for a
while.
My old memories picture someone choosing and deciding, pushing that sand into
piles.
I've had eight years since Lila, and now I think that little man image has gone
three-dimensional. That little man stands within one of the evolutionary
levels, and sorts through the sand of his level, sometimes pushing it into
piles, sometimes just observing. When he pushes the sand, the grains are
almost always linked to bunches of sand in lower levels--which move together
with it--and sometimes are part of groups of grains that are linked together
and linked to a grain above.
Sometimes the little man leaps up a level, in order to push a grain of sand at
a higher level. That pushing shifts a whole bunch of stuff at the lower
level. The little man doesn't stay up there, though. He usually drops right
back down, only the patterns have been altered after his quick visit above.
The connection I see with Gaia is that after that leap to the next level, the
act of pushing the sand on the lower level will be the same, but the patterns
themselves will have changed in a way that lower-level sorter cannot
comprehend.
Of course, Pirsig's description of the role of Quality doesn't change, whether
the picture is three-dimensional or not.
Cool!
Maggie
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