[Mary]
The point he makes is that science is pretty good at figuring out the
"how", but is clueless about figuring out the "why".
[Arlo]
I'm going to disagree with you, slightly, Mary. The MOQ, I hold,
would say that "why" (as you're using it differentiated from "how")
is a "mu" question. At BEST, what can only ever be offered in
response to "why" is an analogy. Even the MOQ is an analogy, a
"finger pointing at the moon". The MOQ can no more "figure out the
why" than SOM, but it simply puts that question into a larger
(Buddhistic) perspective.
In short, the MOQ does NOT answer the question "does a dog have a
Buddha nature?", but it says that asking such a question itself is
perhaps a fool's quest, one that will only diminish both the asker
and the answerer.
I don't think the MOQ offers any better answer as to "why evolution
occurs" than science, but I would say the MOQ understood properly
treats such a question as "mu". Saying "it occurs because it was
better to occur than not" is hardly a powerful, or even meaningful,
answer. We know it occurred, science can fill in all the hows and the
timeline. Theism may try to answer the "whys" but does so from a
perspective that also misses the "mu". Theism is as "blind" to the
Void as is "science".
[Mary]
If you base your world-view on SOM, then value is just "whatever you like".
[Arlo]
"Then he saw it. He brought out the knife and excised the one word
that created the entire angering effect of that sentence. The word
was "just." Why should Quality be just what you like? Why should
"what you like" be "just"? What did "just" mean in this case? When
separated out like this for independent examination it became
apparent that "just" in this case really didn't mean a damn thing. It
was a purely pejorative term, whose logical contribution to the
sentence was nil. Now, with that word removed, the sentence became
"Quality is what you like," and its meaning was entirely changed. It
had become an innocuous truism." (ZMM)
I think the valid criticism Pirsig makes is that "whatever you like"
is seen by "scientific materialism" as inconsequential, irrelevant,
and perhaps even "bad". It is a causal dismissal of "whatever you
like" that Pirsig saw emanating from society as a way of enforcing
norms; obedience to authority.
In the MOQ, value IS '"what you like". Instead of dismissing it, as
S/O logic tended to do, the MOQ embraces it.
[Mary]
To try to use science to answer "why" will, if taken to its logical
conclusion, result in his last sentence: "he will find himself
drifting eventually toward the solutions arrived at by the
Metaphysics of Quality."
[Arlo]
And such a "drift", if you will, has greatly informed the theories of
emergence, of which the MOQ can easily be included.
To get back to my original point about "why", consider again the
earthquake that hit Haiti.
Joe: Why did an earthquake hit Haiti?
Jane: Plate tectonics.
Joe: That explains the how, but not the why. What was the reason an
earthquake hit Haiti?
Jane: Underground pressure on geological plates.
Joe: That explains how, but not why.
What "why" is Joe seeking? Is there a "why"? Does saying "because it
was better for it happen than not" really answer a "why" that science
is unable to fathom?
This is where Mark, I'd hold, steps in with saying "god punishing
angry voodooers" is just as valid an answer to "why".
Finally, consider amoebas in a petri dish with a drop of acid placed
nearby. Science observe the amoeba move, and can describe the
mechanisms and context this movement occurs. Do you really think
"science" has no handle whatsoever on "why" the amoeba moved?
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