Hi Diana and Squad,
On Wednesday, November 04, 1998 Diana wrote:-
>And this brings us to one of Pirsig’s most brilliant ideas – his theory
of evolution. “The idea that life is progressing towards something has
been explored,” he says, “but has anyone taken up the idea that life is
evolving away from something?”
Nice try Diana, but Charles Darwin had the idea long before Pirsig!
Darwin's basis was that life was not static, but always moving, NOT
towards anything in particular, as had been proposed by Jean Baptiste de
Lemarck , but just moving. Darwin's great insight was that just by
randomly moving away from set patterns, any advantageous pattern
emerging by chance would be naturally selected and become dominant
>
>What the MoQ adds to natural selection is that those patterns which are
“selected” are the ones which free themselves from the chains of the
inorganic level.
With respect Diana, that doesn't really mean very much. Biology doesn't
fight against the inorganic level. The biological patterns selected are
the ones which make better and more harmonious use of the inorganic (and
other biological) resources available. Organisms out of harmony with
their surroundings are selected against.
>
>“Survival of the fittest” IS the survival of the biological patterns
that break free from the chains of inorganic level most successfully.
MoQ morality says that freedom from static patterns is the highest
morality. Thus, the MoQ says that natural selection is moral.
>
That sounds like a self-serving argument to me. Furthermore, if one
takes that into the human social domain, the only moral political
philosophy would be nihilism.
Jonathan
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