From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Mar 26 2004 - 14:06:54 GMT
Hi Jim,
Thanks for a most 'informative' post. :-) A few comments.
> However, I can also remember Pirsig when talking abut the Giant, the
> City, (I may be mistaken but is there a reference to a dreamed octopus? -
> it's just after he sees his publisher in New York) he makes the analogy of
> the city as a living organism far greater than the sum of its parts, and
> humans being to it what blood cells are to human beings, implying that he
> could clearly conceive of dynamic force operating at a social level where
> individual living beings were mystified to its operation. I think what
> we're left is is a rhetorical dilemma as Pirsig is clearly not setting out
> a dry-as-dust theoretically impregnable argument.
Pirsig says the city is a static pattern. "This city is another static
pattern left behind by the creative force." (Lila-17) (Note his
description of DQ as the "creative force.")
Further, Pirsig says individuals responding to DQ are responsible for
bringing about change at the social level:
"The strongest moral argument against capital punishment is that it
weakens a society's Dynamic capability-its capability for change and
evolution. It's not the "nice" guys who bring about real social change.
"Nice" guys look nice because they're conforming. It's the "bad" guys, who
only look nice a hundred years later, that are the real Dynamic force in
social evolution. That was the real moral lesson of the brujo in Zuni. If
those priests had killed him they would have done great harm to their
society's ability to grow and change." (Lila-13)
> Certainly the interaction of social and intellectual static qualities with
> dynamic quality is mediated only by human beings.
Yes, I think that's the point.
>(There is a degree to
> which some other animal species are social amongst themselves and even
> interact with humans that way though I can't see any others being
> intellectual irrespective of how much problem solving intelligence a few
> species demonstrate. It is arguable whether artificial intelligence will
> ever be considered 'intellectual'.
An interesting comment by Pirsig about artificial intelligence, from his
Notes to the book, 'Lila's Child:"
"Since the MOQ states that consciousness (i.e. intellectual patterns) is
the collection and manipulation of symbols, created in the brain, that
stand for patterns of experience, then artificial intelligence would be
the collection and manipulation of symbols, created in a machine, that
stand for patterns of experience. If one agrees that experience exists at
the inorganic level, then it is clear that computers already have
artificial intelligence. A question arises if the term "consciousness" is
expanded to mean "intuition" or "mystic awareness." Then computers are
shut out by the fact that static patterns do not create Dynamic quality."
(Note 32)
> The possibility of extraterrestrial
> intellectuals I will discount for the purposes of this discussion as I
> don't think they affect us. ) This what I think he means by "only a living
> being can do that": it's a de facto situation referring to those levels
> which he's given a rhetorical slant, not a statement of a theoretical
> absolute.
I take Pirsig at his word. To suggest, "Well, he didn't really mean it"
seems speculative.
> Again Pirsig also talks about atoms being static patterns of moral value
> and the quality felt at the atomic level being a cousin of the quality felt
> by human beings (I'm afraid that you will have to find the location and I
> apologise for the inexactness of quote). There is also a section, I
> believe at the end of Lila when he's getting groceries after escaping from
> the incident with Lila's 'friend' in New York, where he muses about
> chemicals becoming chemistry professors and vice versa. Sure we have
> static molecules being created by DQ. I'm not saying the molecules are DQ.
> I'm saying that these molecules are still involved in the actions of DQ at
> the biochemical, cellular level.
Yes, one can argue that since humans respond to DQ and humans are
made up of molecules then molecules respond to DQ, too. Perhaps. But my
point is that the inorganic level, by itself, not part of a higher level
organism, is no longer capable of responding to DQ's evolutionary force.
Perhaps you know of evidence to the contrary.
> We also have the problem here that Pirsig is (dare I say) not completely
> correct in his identification of 'dynamic' and 'static' molecules when
> talking about static and dynamic forces operating at the cellular level -
> it doesn't matter with regard to MoQ (that is unless you're trying to
> convince a literal-minded cellular biologist about MoQ): he's only using it
> for purposes of illustration. It so happens that DNA is as dynamic as a
> motorcycle workshop manual. It represents a form static quality and is the
> set of instructions to the cell of what proteins to construct, where and
> when. I would say that the dynamic aspect of the cell is the chain of
> chemical reactions which reacts to circumstances and 'reads' the DNA
> molecule-manual.
I think Pirsig's point is that DNA is now a static pattern, like a
workshop manual, but was initially created by the evolutionary force of DQ
seeking "betterness."
> As far
> as I am aware, there is no molecule that is dynamic (I suppose the media
> would inevitably call it the "god molecule" if such a molecule was
> hypothesised), just increasingly transient ones. The dynamic aspect of
> this level is the chemical reactions.
Chemical reactions occur in predictable static patterns. I see no dynamic
aspect in mere changes.
> The idea of panspermia is an alternative (where 'life' evolved
> elsewhere to be brought to Earth in cometary bombardment), as are various
> ideas of creation by an external agency. You could be right in that it was
> a one-off event, although this does not reflect current thinking. One
> thing worth noting though is that in July of this year the Cassini probe
> will send a lander to land on the planet Saturn's moon Titan which is the
> one other body in the solar system with a dense-but-not-too-dense
> atmosphere, loads of carbon based compounds and it seems liquid on the
> surface (although with a temperature of 94 Kelvin, it isn't water), which
> should be very informative with regard to early Earth processes, assuming
> the lander survives.
The initial life process as described by Pirsig could have taken place
elsewhere. I join you in hoping the lander survives.
> I'm not sure what you mean when you say "consciousness emerging from
> bundle of nerve tissue". Current thinking (backed up by reproducible
> research I hasten to add) tends to indicate that "common sense" ideas
> involving consciousness are misleading and that consciousness is very much
> a set of post-hoc adjustments to try and maintain an illusion of self. But
> you might mean something completely different... ...and I need to read up
> on a lot of that stuff anyway.
All I meant was the brain consists of nerve tissue which mysteriously
'creates' awareness, experience, memory. I put 'creates' in parens because
even that notion is far from settled. The brain, like other bodily organs
that respond to outside influences, may tap into a pre-existing field of
consciousness as some have suggested. As a physicist you must have
wondered why human observation appears to effect a particle's behavior.
Much still to be figured out when it comes to consciousness.
> >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.
> Generally in mainstream physics - hypothesising about physical changes that
> by definition you cannot measure (easily) is not much use in engineering.
> Independently of such considerations, at the level of atomic particles I
> would say that we do have static and dynamic components: the static
> components are the aspects which we recognised as conserved via
> conservation laws, hence the continued 'sameness' of the laws of physics.
> The dynamic component is a continual exploration of the particle's
> environment through its interactions which is known to physicists via the
> various quantum wave equations.
That there's activity at the particle level with particles appearing and
disappearing at an individually unpredictable fashion doesn't indicate an
MOQ dynamic response. Unpredictability, such as what side of a mountain
will erode first or which way an ant will turn is NOT the sole determinant
of the presence of DQ or even an reliable indicator. DQ is the force of
evolutionary creation. No possibility of evolution, no DQ.
> As far as evolution at the inorganic level, as I've said previously, it
> happens so slowly.
True enough. Have you any thoughts at what might evolve at the inorganic
level in the future if indeed evolution can occur there?
Thanks for a great post. In the interests of space, I've omitted some of
your thoughts and hope you'll find no offense in that. I look forward to
hearing from you again. A physicist interested in philosophy is somewhat
of a rarity. We're fortunate to have your contributions.
Best,
Platt
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