From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Feb 28 2003 - 18:23:39 GMT
Platt:
>Here's where Pirsig contradicts your "idea" about ideas:
>
>"A human being is a collection of ideas, and these ideas take moral
>precedence over a society. Ideas are patterns of value. They are at a
>higher level of evolution than social patterns of value. Just as it is
>more moral for a doctor to kill a germ than a patient, so it is more moral
>for an idea to kill a society than it is for a society to kill an idea."
>(13)
>
>Perhaps you can find a quote or two from Pirsig that supports your
>view.
You got to help here Platt. Is he saying that bad ideas don't exist?
Wasn't it an idea to celebrate the criminal element at those cocktail
parties he wrote about, and doesn't he suggest that society needs to kill
that idea? Wouldn't the doctor have to have an idea to kill the patient in
order to kill the patient? Without an idea, it would be accidental, and
that isn't considered immoral, unless the doctor was negligent, which
probably means he'd been preoccupied with the idea to play golf when he
should have been operating. In that case, the idea killed the patient.
>When you say "technology" what are you referring to? Computers?
Computers evolved from transistors which evolved from tubes which evolved
from wires, etc. I guess it goes all the way back to the 'artifacts' you
were talking about, by which I inferred you meant 'stone tools, and their
descendents' Computers will evolve into something else. That course of
evolution is what I call technology. Also medical technology and
automobiles, are technology too.
> > Pirsig would say it is absolutely moral for Technology to wipe
> > out humanity, and absolutely immoral for humans to arrest > Technology,
>but I vehemently disagree.
>
>Pirsig would say what? I'm baffled by what you mean by "technology."
It is a prevailing idea to turn over more and more of our life to
technology, like cloning and reproduction and our bodies and health, and
even things like love and caring, it sounds like Pirsig would say it would
be immoral for anyone to suggest we don't.
Question: Where does Pirsig say ideas come from? I ask because I think the
idea that we ought to let technology evolve and improve our lives comes from
technology itself. If it didn't exist, no one would think of it.
>Pirsig had something to say about computer awareness in his notes to
>"Lila"s Child," but I'll await your answer to what you mean by
>"technology" before looking up Pirsig's remarks.
I haven't looked at that yet. I can download it from the moq site?
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