From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Mon Aug 18 2003 - 11:22:19 BST
David
dmb says:
No. I'm not exactly asking if evolution is true or not. I'm asking how
we
can reconcile two seemingly contrary and mutually exclusive claims.
Paul:
They are both good explanations in different contexts. As Quality is not
completely explained by either it seems unfair to pick one context
completely over another.
David:
One claim is that cosmological evolution is among the highest quality
intellectual explanations.
Paul:
Yes, and it fits with the MOQ postulate that "all life is a migration of
static patterns toward Dynamic Quality".
David:
The other claims that such explanations are actually incorrect.
Paul:
In one context - in an idealist context, matter grows out of ideas. In a
materialist context, it is a scientifically correct explanation.
"I think idealism is of higher quality for understanding the MOQ because
most people understand materialism as "common sense" but few understand
idealism as "common sense" and you need both." [Lila's Child p.531]
"..modern physics has produced laboratory paradoxes for materialists
that do not exist for idealists. I think it is best to understand both
systems, and shift from one to another as it becomes valuable to do so."
[Lila's Child p.511]
Do you feel the strain on the cultural analogue of "one fixed objective
reality" observed from your "fixed global context" yet?
David:
That's it. That's all there is to it. Pirsig says A is great, but is
also a false presumption made by materialist.
David quotes:
Pirsig in a letter to Anthony McWatt:
And in this highest quality intellectual pattern, external objects
appear
historically before intellectual patterns... But this highest quality
intellectual pattern itself comes before the external world, not after,
as
is commonly presumed by the materialist."
Paul:
When you read this you seem to be equating "comes before" and "appears
historically before" with some "objective" significance thus making the
positions mutually exclusive. Remember that "before" and "after" are
intellectual patterns and are therefore subjective.
David quotes:
Pirsig in Lila's Child:
"It is important for an understanding of the MOQ to see that although
'common sense' dictates that inorganic nature came first, actually
'common
sense' which is A SET OF IDEAS, has to come first.
Paul:
Yes, for example, the hypothesis of evolution has to come before
evolution is verified, scientifically speaking. And on the source of
hypotheses, here is a quote for good measure:
"The formation of hypotheses is the most mysterious of all the
categories of scientific method. Where they come from, no one knows. A
person is sitting somewhere, minding his own business, and
suddenly...flash!...he understands something he didn't understand
before. Until it's tested the hypothesis isn't truth. For the tests
aren't its source. Its source is somewhere else." [ZMM p.113]
David quotes:
In the same letter Pirsig also says:
"If cosmological evolution does not exist then the ordering of the four
static levels in the MOQ would cease to be a viable basis for a moral
framework."
Paul:
I think cosmological evolution would cease to exist when a better
explanation of how "we" got here emerges from Quality or when the theory
causes more problems than it solves, that is, when it loses its value.
Cheers
Paul
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