[Andre] Fat chance drawing me in this one Arlo. I do not believe in chance, I also know that we do not know everything and possibly never will, but I don't know that either.
[Arlo] You lose me here. You "know" but you "don't know" the same thing? First, I've never suggested anywhere that we "know everything". But if you don't believe in "chance", and (like Platt) say "it's DQ instead", I am very curious as to what distinctions you feel separate the two. What is it about "chance" that you feel "DQ" offers differently? Randomness? Intent? What? [Andre] I do think though that DQ is not 'behind' anything. DQ simply is. [Arlo] Well I agree. But if you point to the harmonious resolution of social conflicts (as in the passage you cite) as evidence of where DQ differs from chance, I think it's quite valid to ask how that differs from a situation like the Buffalo plane crash. In one (the Pirsig quote), DQ seems to bring about social harmony based on some Karmic understanding of the needs of all involved. In the other, it wipes out everyone alive on an airplane. If this is not "chance" (like Krimel I prefer "probability"), then I don't know what is (unless you argue there is some master plan that required those people to die, a plan we are too limited in scope to see, but that takes us back to "intent", the idea that DQ is an intentional being in cosmic affairs, a warm thought but leads us to rethinking agency and volition to be sure). In MOQ parlance, however, I'd say that the plane crash was a "conflict" (from the human vantage point) of inorganic quality and biological quality. On the inorganic level, the components of the plane were simply following quality within their repertoire of possibility. The inorganic constituents of the plane were following DQ inorganically. Even the final plummet to the ground was DQ in action (on the inorganic level). On the inorganic level, there is nothing that "cares" about human life, nor does DQ "care". It was just happenstance that this "accident" (which is our higher level perception of the events) coincided with an resultant loss of human life. In the same way, it was happenstance that those individuals following DQ found a harmonious resolution. It does not always play out that way. For every example of a "happy ending", there are countless "unhappy endings", all of which together shows no "plan", no "intent", in DQ's relationship to the presence or existence of humans in the cosmos. For millions upon millions of years the cosmos got along fine without "man", and were it not for a random meteor would probably still be getting along fine without him. "Man" exists at the end of a long string of subsequent "probability fields" (to steal Krimel's term), but in the end owes his existence to chance, not some pre-ordered plan or intentional deliberation of a "Qualigod". 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/
