> [Pirsig] > Either life is with physical nature or it's against it. If it's with > nature > there's nothing to survive. If it's against physical nature then there > must > be something apart from the physical and chemical forces of nature that is > motivating it to be against physical nature. The Second Law of > Thermodynamics states that all energy systems 'run down' like a clock and > never rewind themselves. But life not only 'runs up,' converting low > energy > sea-water, sunlight and air into high-energy chemicals, it keeps > multiplying > itself into more and better clocks that keep 'running up' faster and > faster. >
DM: These are questions, sure Pirsig does not talk about the local non-equlibrium processes that Prigogine gives us, but that's a feature of when he wrote. Even given this, there is a need to think about how and why life 'exploits' such available enerrgy resources, the biologists may fail to unpack this notion of 'exploit' too readily. Questioning this seems important to me. > [Pirsig] > If we leave a chemistry professor out on a rock in the sun long enough the > forces of nature will convert him into simple compounds of carbon, oxygen, > hydrogen and nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, and small amounts of other > minerals. It's a one-way reaction. No matter what kind of chemistry > professor we use and no matter what process we use we can't turn these > compounds back into a chemistry professor. Chemistry professors are > unstable > mixtures of predominantly unstable compounds which, in the exclusive > presence of the sun's heat, decay irreversibly into simpler organic and > inorganic compounds. That's a scientific fact. > The question is: Then why does nature reverse this process? What on earth > causes the inorganic compounds to go the other way? It isn't the sun's > energy. We just saw what the sun's energy did. It has to be something > else. > What is it? DM: Again it is a question worth asking. Clearly energy can support SQ to build levels or to reduce higher levels to lower ones. Good question to ask how we understand this difference. > > [Krimel] > Everyone knows that evolution on earth is fueled by the constant input of > sunlight. All life and most of the energy on this planet derive from > photons > trying to bounce out into space. DM: Yes, but this opportunity could be ignored, yet it is not? We can ask with Pirisig: Why and how? > > If you put a chemistry professor on a rock in the sun it is not sunlight > that reduces him to chemical compounds. It is lack of food, water and sex. > Give him lots of supplies and a Playboy bunny and he will get a tan and > raise a family on the rock. > > Give him plenty of food water and sex but take away sunlight and he will > be > reduced to a prof-sicle in minutes. DM: Or he could sit there and die. Two different possibilities. Of course you can argue that actions that lead to survival are more likely to be selected to create hungry and horny professors, but this is a bit glib, how do we get this variety to select from? Is de-selection the only factor? Is there any more direct feedback going on? Is quality a factor that drives a positive form of selection? Again, worth asking. > > [Pirsig] > If life is to be explained on the basis of physical laws, then the > overwhelming evidence that life deliberately works around these laws > cannot > be ignored. The reason atoms become chemistry professors has got to be > that > something in nature does not like laws of chemical equilibrium or the law > of > gravity or the laws of thermodynamics or any other law that restricts the > molecules' freedom. They only go along with laws of any kind because they > have to, preferring an existence that does not follow any laws whatsoever. DM: The language & science is a bit dated. But the question of selecting options that get us from lower to higher levels (i.e. out of chaos and slime) is a good question, it goes beyond evolutionary theory as it looks at this problem more broadly than just biology. I think it is less about teleology that about saying thatin our experience selection occurs due to activity and activity seems to act by valuing good quality over bad. > > [Pirsig] > 'Survival of the fittest' is meaningful only when 'fittest' is equated > with > 'best,' which is to say, 'Quality.' And the Darwinians don't mean just any > old quality, they mean undefined Quality! As Mayr's article makes clear, > they are absolutely certain there is no way to define what that 'fittest' > is. > Good! The 'undefined fittest" they are defending is identical to Dynamic > Quality. Natural selection is Dynamic Quality at work. There is no quarrel > whatsoever between the Metaphysics of Quality and the Darwinian Theory of > Evolution. Neither is there a quarrel between the Metaphysics of Quality > and > the 'teleological' theories which insist that life has some purpose. What > the Metaphysics of Quality has done is unite these opposed doctrines > within > a larger metaphysical structure that accommodates both of them without > contradiction. > > [Krimel] > He is quite correct that the MoQ in many ways restates Darwin. It can help > provide some clarity on the role of DQ in creating and developing static > patterns in Nature. But we can only resurrect teleology by ignoring the > fact > that DQ is Shiva, creator and destroyer. DM: Agree that DQ has a destructive aspect, but I think Pirsig is trying to suggest that life acts and acts to choose good qualities over bad, this can alter evolution in the way an organism makes use of the potential its genes provides, or may even feedback into the genetic selection/reproduction e.g. gene switches. What survives in evolution is not > necessarily the 'fittest' but what is not annihilated. Big rocks falling > out > of the sky, glaciers, climate change, volcanoes and disease are all agents > of DQ. His insistence that DQ is a driving force towards "betterness" > salvages teleology at the expense of the power and precision of the ideas > he > uses. DM: Teleology suggest a pull, evolution a push, maybe quality some kind of reaching out and effort in a quality direction. > > [Pirsig] > It seems clear that no mechanistic pattern exists toward which life is > heading, but has the question been taken up of whether life is heading > away > from mechanistic patterns? > > [Krimel] > This ignores the fact that as often as not, what evolution is running way > from is DQ itself. > DM: I think the point is that the development from plants to animals to humans to social-intellectual individuals creates organisms with increased freedom and potential which arises from the ability to employ an increasing repertoire of SQ. 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