From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Mar 24 2004 - 13:44:02 GMT
Hi Jim,
First, a warm welcome to the group.
Platt Holden wrote:
> >What I'm driving at is that according to the MOQ, only living beings can
> >respond to DQ.
Jim responded:
> So according to MoQ there was no response to DQ before biological cells
> existed? (assuming you count cells as "living beings"). I'm fairly sure
> that Pirsig actually says that the biological level evolved to allow a more
> dynamic response to DQ than the physical level. So what we have is each
> static level responding in their own way to DQ just as they have since the
> dawn of time (or rather more accurately since the dawn of that particular
> level), it's just that each static level is a better, more dynamic response
> to DQ than the one from which it has evolved. At least that's my reading.
Pirsig says, "And beyond that is an even more compelling reason; societies
and thoughts and principles themselves are no more than static patterns.
These patterns cannot by themselves perceive or adjust to Dynamic Quality.
Only a living being can do that." (Lila-13).
In Chapter 11 Pirsig describes how life began: "What the Dynamic force had to
invent in order to move up the molecular level and stay there was a carbon
molecule that would preserve its limited Dynamic freedom from inorganic
laws and at the same time resist deterioration back to simple compounds of
carbon again. A study of nature shows the Dynamic force was not able to do
this but got around the problem by inventing two molecules: a static
molecule able to resist abrasion, heat, chemical attack and the like; and
a Dynamic one, able to preserve the subatomic indeterminacy at a molecular
level and "try everything" in the ways of chemical combination."
So, there was no "response to DQ" at the inorganic level to create life
but instead an invention by DQ of DNA, the life molecule which was then
able to respond. As far as I know, this leap from non-life to life was a
singular event, like the Big Bang and consciousness emerging from bundle
of nerve tissue.
If life is still being created at the inorganic level, you would think
there would be a lot of biologists observing the phenomenon. a scenario if
it's occurring I'm unaware of. (Reminds me of Winston Churchill's response
when he was criticized for ending a sentence with a preposition: "That is
the sort of arrant nonsense up with which I will not put.")
> So evolution continues to exist at all levels, but obviously humans
> dominate it, which might well suppress it, I guess.
There's no evolution at the inorganic level that I know of other than what
humans have created in the way of new compounds and such.
Physics wouldn't be possible if the inorganic level didn't consist of
static patterns that repeated themselves predictably in perpetuity.
I look forward to being corrected.
Regards,
Platt
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