> [Platt] > If I could do that I would be some kind of hero to the evolutionists. > > [Arlo] > I am asking you to speculate. This is an important ramification of > the claim that "only man" responds to DQ. To restate. > > If animals could respond to DQ in the past (DQ-animals), (1) what was > the nature of this ability? what could they do?, (2) was there ever > an overlap, a time when both DQ-animals and DQ-man walked the earth > together? Or did DQ-animals in North America "lose" their DQ-ness > when DQ-man appears in Africa? (3) was there ever a time when NOTHING > on the earth could respond to DQ? Before "man", was it always that > something, somewhere could respond to DQ? During the time of the > dinosaurs, for example, what was DQ-enabled? T-rex? Lemurs? Ferns? > (4) Extending that, before the era of animals, is your proposal that > "plants" could respond to DQ? If not, what? If so, what is the nature > of how those plants could "act" that they can no longer do? (5) When > "cats", to use one example, could respond to DQ (DQ-cats), what could > they do then that they can no longer do now? Again, speculate. Did > they have "free will" when they were DQ-cats? And, importantly (6) > why did DQ-animals lose their ability? If they could respond to DQ, > what made them stop? Is your assumption that humans could one day > "lose" the ability to respond to DQ? If not, why not? > > Take a crack at any of these. Speculate. Guess. I don't think it'll > be easy, I think the absurdity of the claim that "only man" responds > to DQ is evident here.
If you think the claim is absurd, fine. I think Pirsig makes it clear that the evolution of the physical and biological levels took place at the atomic and molecular levels, and states that now "only a living being" can respond to DQ, giving the examples of you hearing a great song for the first time, a man having a heart attack, a baby staring at his rattle, a chemistry professor having pure fun, and the brujo changing the Zuni society. If you wish to contradict Pirsig by claiming physical things like dice respond to DQ, that's your privilege. > Again, if we consider that all patterns > respond to DQ, but do so only with a repertoire of constraints and > affordances allowed by their evolutionary level, we get a wholly > solid picture. There were no "DQ-cats" then and "Non-DQ-cats" now. > There were always "cats", and "cats" could always respond the same > way to DQ, the same way ten thousand years ago as today. With the > advent of the social level, certain animals (I break from Pirsig on > this, as I do think some primates and other species evidence > rudimentary social level patterning) gained a whole new repertoire of > responses, of which "man's" has been the most complex by far. With > the advent of the intellectual level, "man" again gained a whole new > repertoire of responses. But along the way, nothing "lost" the > ability to respond to DQ. Some things just gained new affordances, > amazing new repertoires of responses. Again, if you think dice as well as rocks, ropes and roads respond to DQ, fine. Just don't be surprised at the laughter coming from the back row of your class. 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/
