RE: MD 10 statements: (for Wim on the degeneracy issue)

From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Dec 08 2002 - 21:53:02 GMT

  • Next message: Erin N.: "RE: MD 10 statements: (for Wim on the degeneracy issue)"

    Erin, Wim and all:

    Here's two cents. I think the issue of degeneracy is easier to sort out at
    the 3rd and 4th levels. Biology has its ways and there is little we can do
    about it, but degeneracy is a most important issue in human affairs, and
    there we can make some choices. It seems that the passages discussing moral
    regeneration, the contrarians, how to tell the difference between a criminal
    and a saint - all that and more - these get at the issue. Naturally,
    degeneracy is a concept best examined along side concepts like regeneration,
    evolution, preservation, stagnation and destruction. Degeneracy is a word
    that can describe a person's behavior or the stage of a declining culture,
    but these meanings are not as different as one might think. Is it growing?
    Is it dying? We can ask that about many things, including people, churches,
    ideologies, empires and philosophies.

    Thanks,
    DMB

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Wim Nusselder [mailto:wim.nusselder@antenna.nl]
    Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 1:57 PM
    To: MD
    Subject: Re: MD 10 statements: (for Wim on the degeneracy issue)

    Dear Erin,

    You wrote 8 Dec 2002 13:00:09 -0500
    'I think I know the issue for me. Degenerate activity loses its "degeneracy"
    connation when it looked in the framework of a paradox. ... "Life lives on
    life." One life form is sustained through the destruction of another.'

    You mean 'degeneration of patterns of value' in the MoQish sense (patterns
    of value losing their 'latch' and falling back on a lower latch) 'loses its
    negative connotation when it is viewed as part of the paradox that life
    depends on killing'?
    My life depends on killing vegetables and fish (I happen to be a
    vegetarian). 'Life on earth', understood as the biological pattern of value
    that has been recognizably the same (latched on DNA replication) for about a
    billion years, depends on an endless chain of individual organisms living a
    limited time and dying to feed others. So does my life depend on individual
    cells dying and being replaced by others.

    I see no paradox, unless you mistake the two levels of meaning of 'life'.
    'Life' understood as a biological pattern of value is not the same as the
    life of an individual organism. 'Life of an individual organism' understood
    as a (smaller scale) biological pattern of value is not the same as the life
    of one of its constituent parts.

    Degeneration of patterns of value should keep its negative connotation in
    the MoQ context.

    With friendly greetings,

    Wim

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