I am in agreement with what you wrote Arlo. Indeed, man can be very self-centered, but then so is an antelope I would imagine. Quality is as much for us as it is for everything else. This in my view would be completely.
The concept of a higher design is interesting, especially if such a higher design proceeds by trial and error. I'm sure many composers keep working at music until they get it right. If it is is a human-like concept of higher design, all I can say is that our human intelligence (if you want to call it that) is simply part of a much greater intelligence. There is nothing revolutionary about the patterns formed in our brains. Such patterns exist all over the place. Let's say that the universe is composing according to certain rules. Through trial and error it is creating along a certain path. That path is structured by Quality, thus the levels etc. I think that such a composition would be similar to the formation of a river on its way to the ocean. In hindsight we can understand why of course the river took the path it did, it was under control. Similarly, by recognizing the path that Quality leaves behind, one can see a pattern in its imprint. Interestingly, that imprint is a direct mirror image of Quality (like a footstep). By imagining the inverse of what there is, we can understand Quality and all its actions. In fact Quality could be seen as pulling things forward in the same way a vacuum pulls air into it. The final shape of the air is that of the container with the vacuum. The final (and temporary) shape of Quality is that which we see and experience. I suppose instead of defining Quality as "it is what is" it would be better to define it as "it is what isn't" Mark On Nov 19, 2009, at 8:03:45 PM, "ARLO J BENSINGER JR" <[email protected]> wrote: From: "ARLO J BENSINGER JR" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [MD] British Emergentism Date: November 19, 2009 8:03:45 PM PST To: [email protected] [Mark] I think I see your point, but you may be missing the control that is actually there. "You are free to move about the cabin". That means that you are free but your freedom is confined. [Arlo] Certainly. This is akin to what Archer and Giddens have called "structuration", and Bourdieu describes as "habitus". I certainly would never say that "free" means a carbon atom has the "freedom" to compose a symphony or morph into a penguin. But the point I emphasize is that this contextual structuration does not follow willful orchestration or some "higher design" that manipulates things to achieve a certain, or predictable, outcome. [Mark] The exact same thing is seen with Quality (imo), that is, we are free so long as we follow certain rules. [Arlo] Certainly. My "freedom" does not enable me to fly, but my "flightlessness" is not part of some grand scheme, or serve some cosmic "purpose". Carbon atoms did not form so that *I* would have luxury of life. Pirsig describes the evolutionary movement of patterns as one away from rules, or certainly that as complex patterns evolve they overcome restrictions in place on the "simpler" patterns that support them. My ongoing point is saying things like "Quality controls...", "Quality creates..." is fine when understood metaphorically, but when taken as Writ (literally) they actually undermine the entire meaning of the MOQ. They lead people, like Platt, to seek endless reductionist explanations, and to propose a Quality-as-Designer that is simply a substitute for "God". [Mark] Perhaps Quality has a mind like ours, perhaps not. [Arlo] Perhaps it has fuzzy blue feathers, and watches Monday Night Football. Humor aside, I think its very much outside the MOQ to propose it "having a mind like ours". It was against thinking like this that Pirsig calls the MOQ "anti-theistic". [Mark] All I can see is that if everything were left purely up to chance, we wouldn't see the world as it is. [Arlo] "Purely up to chance" means nothing. Chance is simply uncertainty. Chance derives from "freedom", it says that there was a "chance" subatomic particles may not have formed "carbon". For if this was a certainty, there would be no value response for these particles. They would simply be following their prescribed role. "Chance" also takes into account that the cosmos is not manipulated for "man". The same "Quality" from which life on this planet is a response to, may one day drive an asteroid the size of Texas into our oceans. Boom. No more "people". A particular solar-flare eruption, taking no account of "us", could wipe out everything on the planet. A strain of germs, simply following their own path of Quality, could wipe us out. "Quality" is a "blind mistress". It does not alter the path of asteroids to protect us, nor move our planet to avoid a solar flare. The way I see it, Mark, it is far, far, far better to really grasp the improbability and chance of our existence. It makes everything that much more beautiful. We are incredibly "lucky" and should cherish with every waking moment that we are here. As Dr. Seuss wrote, how lucky am I!!! 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