[Krimel] > In this web of causality it is all determined but indeterminable > until it actually happens. > If it were all as ruggedly deterministic as you imagine, throwing > dice would not be considered "gambling".
[Craig] So "it is all determined" but not "ruggedly deterministic". A die is rolled & comes up 3 because of its initial position, its trajectory & as you say, an infinite number of other conditions. If it had come up 4, our only explanation is that one of the conditions was different. Is Pirsig trying to explain inorganic action on the analogy of human action or trying to explain human action on the analogy of inorganic? Whether throwing the dice is a matter of chance or is deterministic, it is still gambling. The gamble is in not knowing the result of the throw beforehand. [Krimel] Following Newton, the dream of determinism was to end this business of "...not knowing the result of the throw beforehand." What we have found instead is that determinism does not produce this kind of knowledge. The number of factors "determining" any outcome of events is so large as to be unpredictable. Any set of outcomes even the throwing of dice is so sensitive to the conditions under which it occurs, that it will always be a gamble. I think Pirsig had a hint of this and what he says points in this direction. What he calls DQ is actually this buzz of interacting, nested webs of causality that make up our world. As for which way he would cast the analogies, I can't say. The same nest of causality occurs at both levels. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
