Bodvar Skutvik (skutvik@online.no)
Wed, 1 Jul 1998 06:36:07 +0100
Mon, 29 Jun 1998 10:27:28 +0000
glove <glove@indianvalley.com>
ended his message thus:
> someone here said (or words to this effect) that physics allows many
> absolutes and so referring to MOQ as an absolute is no big deal. i
> differ in
> this opinion. it is a very big deal.
> i am not really qualified to speak as a physicist, but i have done some
> reading in this field and it seems clear that the reason constants, or
> absolutes are used in physics is because they HAVE to be used in order
> to
> get value out of equations...we apparently need them to make meaning out
> of
> universe. but the fact absolutes and constants are used does not mean
> they
> exist.
Being the originator of the "physics constant" suggestion I feel
called upon to answer your attack on the MOQ - even if your letter was
directed to Horse.
Your criticism of Pirsig wasn't very exact, it sounded more like an
argument against Darwinism, so my commentary will not be very
specific re. your assertions either.
In your very first letter to the LS you said that everything was
subjective, in this you follow up by saying:
> lets start very simply...what do i see when i look around me...
> i see a constantly regenerating universe of which i am not only part of,
> but of which i am constructing at a very basic level of my being. without
> the 'me' that is my awareness, none of this exists relationally. the same
> can be said for all of us who are connected here to this moment thru this
> relational matrix we call reality. all i see around me could be termed
> 'rippling evolution'.
The "subjective" position is really directed against the "objective"
one; those two extremes has been what things have alternated between
ever since the SOM came into being. I cannot go into who has been
chief spokespersons for the two camps, but we generally know them as
"idealists" and "materialists". And it can also safely be said that
their respective views are untenable. It sounds obvious when you say
that the world exist "in your awareness" (and within a SOM framework
it is solid),---- at first, but later it gets really complicated as
one has to divide it into an objective awareness and a subjective
awareness. Rupert Sheldrake does not go into such boring detail, but
I feel that he is starting from the SOM pov, and falls victim to
ridicule from the materialist side about the "nature" of his
Morphogenetic Fields and their interaction with matter. This would be
the fate of the MOQ too (it has its own Q-field as you know) hadn't
it been for the fact that Pirsig laid a new metaphysical foundation.
It is this foundation that is special about the MOQ, everything else
- its version of evolution (of life) which seemingly agrees with
Darwin (as well as with the creationists) comes second
You deny betterness among the species and think you argue against the
MOQ, but the Quality tenet is the betterment over the various value
levels!! Not within Biology itself where an amoeba is as good at doing
the amoeba things as a cat is for cat things. You are of course free
to argue that there is no moral increase at all: That Life is no
better than Death, that Social order is no better than a dog-eats-dog
existence, and that individual worth, language, ideas is no better
than tribal self- sacrifice, but do you really?
Jonathan Marder answered the fossil objection very well, and no one
can really question evolution as such, but all right Glove, I
understand your position. Could you only see that Pirsig's
metaphysical groundwork is what Sheldrake needs to achieve
credibility. As I understand it RS's morphogenetics aren't confined
to biology, in the Introduction to his "Presence of the Past" I found
this passage:
"When such repetitions has occurred on an astronomical scale over
billions of years, as it has in the case of many kinds of atoms,
molecules and crystals, the nature of these things has become so
deeply habitual that it is effectively changeless, or seemingly
eternal."
This is a good description of the Inorganic level of the MOQ and had
Sheldrake known Pirsig's metaphysics he would have seen its deep
implication for his own ideas. An aside: Sheldrake at least must know
Charles Peirce and the Semiotic idea, but I found no reference in his
work.
Glove. I won't go into any specific points of your message except
these very basic ones. As said I don't think your target is the MOQ,
but merely the expression "evolution" which goes against the grain of
your intuition.
Bo
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