Ah yes, now I see the point. A tough one too. When I was editing my last post, I
wrote that Pirsig's answer to evolution was teleological, then I added "kind of",
then I removed the sentence altogether. I think there are possibly several ways
to look at this dualism, and maybe, if directly confronted with the question,
Pirsig would find out an elegant explanation of how both "blind, purposeless" and
"designed, purposeful" evolution are really a pair of bull's horns and the
"truth" lies in between them.
Given that evolution has no intellect - what would it mean that it conceives a
"design"? Is evolution the subject, by the way? Or design in evolution means that
evolution is a means used by something else which has a design? (I guess that
something would be "Quality", but Quality too has no intellect - as intellect is
just really a level of Quality.
There seem to be causes for evolution which aren't teleological. Do we *also*
need teleological causes? How do they survive Occam's razor, if we have
non-teleogical, sufficient causes?
I'll admit to be rather confused, and would like to know if someone has a good
MOQ-based answer to this dilemma.
A
Platt Holden ha scritto:
> Andrea:
>
> PLATT:
> > > So I ask
> > > specifically of you gentlemen the same question I posed in a previous
> > > post today: "Is Pirsig a creationist?"
>
> ANDREA:
> > Of course he isn't (I am tempted to ask, "why would you put the question at
> > all?", so there may be something I am missing, here). MOQ's answer to the
> > question "why survive?" is really a set of questions ("why would the
> > individual fight to survive?" "why would the species fight to survive?"
> > "why would a society fight to survive?", etc., where "fight" in all cases
> > includes "adapt"). In any case, given the role the MOQ assigns to DQ, and
> > the way DQ incarnates in the constant progress of SQ patterns towards
> > "betterness" (or should I say, from good to better, towards "bestness"),
> > the MOQ couldn't do without the concept of evolution, which is actually
> > applied to all levels including, but not limited to, biological. The "still
> > life" picure provided by creationism, whereby all life is as it has always
> > been (perfect?), rules out the essence of the MOQ, i.e., the SQ/DQ split.
>
> I agree if by "creationism" you refer solely to the fundamentalist
> religious position on evolution. I guess that's the common definition. I've
> phrased the question poorly. I should have asked, "Does the MOQ
> support design or purpose in evolution? Or to put it another way, "Is
> Pirsig a teleologist?" Or, another way, " Would Pirsig agree with Susan
> Blackmore that evolution is 'mindless'?"
>
> Platt
>
>
>
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