Platt Holden (pholden@worldnet.att.net)
Tue, 25 Nov 1997 09:16:42 +0100
Hi Ken,
First, permit to compliment you for the high quality of your writing. It's
a delight to read such sparkling prose. There's a warmth in it that comes
through, and its clarity is wonderful to behold. There's a lot of Dynamic
Quality flowing through your veins my friend!
So overwhelmed am I by the brilliance of your rhetoric that I can find
nothing to disagree with, well, maybe with your characterization of Ayn
Rand's philosophy which deserves no further discussion on this site.
I would tentatively suggest to you, however, that even though Pirsig
doesn't specifically refer to Gaia, nor could anyone accuse him of being an
environmental activist, he does warn against a higher level destroying a
lower one. At the end of Chapter 13 in Lila, he talks about how intellect
is threatening society and says, "An evolutionary morality says it is moral
for intellect to do so, but also contains a warning: Just as a society that
weakens its people's physical health endangers its own stability, so does
an intellectual pattern that weakens and destroy its social base also
endanger its own stability."
Doesn't that at least imply a moral basis for your concerns within the
Metaphysics of Quality without the need to rearrange levels?
It seems to me that where you emphasize the risk to society of ignoring
biological deterioration, I could with equal vigor emphasize the risk to
society of intellectual arrogance, that is, others knowing what's good for
you more than you do and enforcing their moral superiority through the
strong arm of a trooper with a gun. In fact, for me that is indeed a more
clear and present danger to society than the health of Gaia. Be that as it
may, I see our respective views as complimentary rather than opposing with
both fitting comfortably into Pirsig's metaphysical structure.
One sentence in your letter really jumped out and bit me: "He (Lovelock)
did this to counter the charge of teleology that was directed at his
concept by other scientists." Now if there's one thing that destroys the
MoQ it is the charge of teleology. Science has such paranoia about any hint
of God that they will summarily dismiss, usually with condescending giggles
and smirks, any suggestion that the universe has a purpose.
What bothers me so much about this is that old bugaboo, intellectual
arrogance. Many scientists seem to think that they are the new Gods,
standing somewhere outside of the universe, dispensing knowledge to the
great unwashed multitudes. It never seems to occur to these masters of the
universe that they were created by the universe, are part and parcel of it,
and exhibit purpose galore. Even they, when pressed to the wall by their
vaunted logic, will have to admit they have a purpose in saying the
universe has no purpose.
I get up on the soapbox about this because I believe strongly in the MoQ.
And make no mistake about it, the MoQ is teleological. It says that
evolution occurred not by accident, but by the drive for Quality. Pirsig
asserts as much in no uncertain terms: "Natural Selection is Dynamic
Quality." (Lila, Chapter 11.)
Well, I hope you'll be patient to me for sounding off. In my previous
letter I said I felt a kinship with you on account of age. Now I feel a
further kinship on account of intellect.
Platt
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