Dear Elliot,
You wrote 19/4 0:49 -0500:
'Is it unthinkable that [animal] cultures have developed something of equal
significance to our level of
"intellectual". I agree that there are levels of static patterns, but having
a limited (arbitrary) number and placing man at the cutting edge of
"progress", I can't see.'
In a pragmatist and radical empiricist philosophy (which the MoQ is
according to Pirsig) 'good' equals both 'what works and is successful' and
'what exists i.e. what can be experienced'.
>From my human and necessary limited experience animal cultures are far less
successful than human cultures e.g. in adapting to extreme circumstances
like those encountered in space travel and in procreating far beyond what
earth's original ecosystems could have carried. Artificially adapting
ecosystems (as in factory farming and monocultural agriculture) is far
beyond apes or any other animal. If human (biological) successes will last
.... we'll have to wait and see. Maybe bacteria and cockroaches will outlast
us when we create an Armageddon with our ABC-weapons.
Is it unthinkable? Well, there is hardly anything unthinkable... But is it
very practical, you think, NOT to impose our human values on fish and other
animal friends?
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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