RE: MD Chance and natural selection

From: Ian Glendinning (ian@psybertron.org)
Date: Mon Aug 18 2003 - 22:22:57 BST

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    Steve,

    Chance / randomness are perhaps the wrong words - the oxymoron is a tough
    one I may have to think about - though I'm not sure I said it was physical
    pattern. Perhaps it's more to do with chaos and complex systems. A
    determinate pattern, but pragmatically unpredictable in detail for all
    intents and purposes. Essentially random, if not literally.

    I don't object to the metaphor, merely to the ignoring that it is a
    metaphor.
    Without purpose ? - Sounds right.
    Without value ? - With value only according to some intellectual pattern
    like the MoQ.
    Without meaning ? - With meaning only according to human metaphors
    By chance ? - See above.

    Interesting, this seems to imply a physical pattern is just an intellectual
    pattern anyway.

    What I'm beginning to think (and I'm thinking out loud here) is that
    everything in the MoQ at any level is an intellectual pattern. The levels
    simply reflect, the extent to which they are merely intellectual patterns
    (at the top) or have become more deeply fixed in conventional or dead
    metaphors, known as social (intellectual patterns shared by a society or
    culture, but still widely recognised as patterns of belief and value held by
    the members),
    biological (intellectual patterns so deeply shared, and metaphors so dead,
    that society has forgotten they are patterns of belief),
    physical (ditto - the distinction from biological simply being the choice of
    dead / alive metaphors).

    Just a thought.

    Ian

    -----Original Message-----
    From: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
    [mailto:owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk]On Behalf Of Steve Peterson
    Sent: 18 August 2003 16:01
    To: moq_discuss@moq.org
    Subject: Re: MD Chance and natural selection

    Hi Ian, Jonathan,

    > Yes, chance is massively at work in the world...

    Randomness is a Platypus in SOM. The MOQ has a place for it only as an
    intellectual pattern of value that presupposes an observer to infer a
    pattern or the lack of one. It would be an oxymoron to call randomness an
    inorganic pattern since randomness means the lack of a pattern so I don't
    think you can say chance is "at work in the world."

    >
    > Steve, you said ...
    > the MOQ says that evolution aims for quality.
    >
    > Ian says ...
    > "aims" is metaphorical
    > Neither MOQ nor Evolution can aim for anything literally.

    Steve:
    That goes without saying. The point is that Darwinian materialists object
    to such metaphors and insist that to understand evolution we must see it as
    without purpose, without value, without meaning, and by chance.

    Thanks,
    Steve

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