> Hi Platt, > > > Steve P: > > > >> First of all, the blog I am working on is not aimed directly at > >> convincing theists that they have a bunch of wacky beliefs that we'd > >> all be better off if they dropped. That is indirectly part of my > goal, > >> but the blog is not to attract theists to the discussion. I want to > >> converse with other non believers in an ongoing strategy session > that > >> would include the sort of suggestion you made. > > > Platt: > > Perhaps your non believers would like to address the question Pirsig > > posed > > in Lila: > > > > "Why, for example, should a group of simple, stable compounds of > > carbon, > > hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen struggle for billions of years to > > organize > > themselves into a professor of chemistry? What's the motive? 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?" (Lila, 11) > > Steve: > I also love the above passage. I think his question points to a > creative aspect of the universe (Dynamic Quality) that science needs to > try to incorporate into it's theories. We may never have answers to > these questions, but this sounds to me like the sort of process that > science has come up with better and better explanations for in the > past. > > Do you already have answer that you'd like to share? Since your > question was addresses to nonbelievers, are you suggesting that the > answer to these questions is God?
Hi Steve, No. I like Pirsig's theory. Thanks for asking. Regards, Platt 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/
