From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Sep 10 2004 - 20:15:46 BST
Ham,
> Scott replied [to Platt]:
> > I am disagreeing with the notion that intellect only happens in people,
so
> > I am declining your suggestions :-). Plants can't read Lila, but they
can
> > -- or their species can -- read the soil they are in, match bits of it
> with
> > the pattern of "nutrition" and so take it in and grow. Also, DQ can't
> > change a lizard into a bird, but it can take the idea of a lizard and
use
> > it to build the idea of a bird (with, no doubt, a lot of trial and
error,
> > for which particulars provide feedback, and maybe not even knowing what
it
> > is building until it gets built -- I'm not trying to support the usual
> > Intelligent Design argument here).
>
[Ham said:]> What is wrong with supporting "Intelligent Design"? It
certainly makes
> more sense than attributing Intellect to the amoeba or plant. This thread
> is titled "A bit of reasoning". At the risk of offending those of you who
> abhor the word Teleology and yet seem determined to prove that purpose is
> implicit in Quality, let me try to inject some reason into this discussion
> with the help of a biologist.
Note that I said "the *usual* Intelligent Design argument". I am not
anti-teleological, nor is Pirsig. Although I differ in many ways from
Pirsig, we are both monists, and it is the dualism of the usual Intelligent
Design argument that I reject -- see below. In my view, an amoeba is not
intelligent, but the amoeba species is. A human being differs from
non-human animals in that the non-human animal gets its purpose from
instinct -- its species' intelligence -- while the human gets some of it
from itself. We can make our own goals, and can question and resist the
biological ones.
The usual Intelligent Design argument comes in the form of God as Designer
and world as Designed, or dualism, and that is what I am trying to avoid.
This is not to say that I am espousing pantheism, but that I am leery of
theism.
> Here are some pertinent quotes from the Sinnott book:
>
> "Dualism is especially unpopular as a philosophy for science since it
seems
> to imply mysticism, the supernatural, and the existence of disembodied
> spirits, with none of which science is prepared to deal. The alternative
> monistic philosophy, however, in its commonest form sees the universe as
> indeed a unity but a unity based only on matter, the final reality. It
looks
> on mind as a by-product with no real existence of its own, something that
is
> tied inexorably to physical processes and produced by them much as music
is
> produced by a phonograph. The material part of man appears to permanent
and
> stable that it seems to offer a more satisfactory basis for his life than
> the fluctuating and discontinuous existence of his 'mind'.
Right, but there are other monisms than the materialist one, and
alternatives to strict theism.
- Scott
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