[Platt] Pirsig responds to Krimel's "Sunlight Creation" thesis:"
"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) [Krimel] Out of respect for Pirsig I don't bring quotes like this up and I try to cut him a little slack and pretend he just didn't know any better. When you bring up these quotes you just make both Pirsig and yourself look stupid. [Platt] Science's best answer: "It's emergence." In other words, "Oops." [Krimel] Asteroids produce "Oops". Sunlight and time produce "Aha". But either way the answer is profound, beautiful and inspiring if you understand it. 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/
