Nice post Arlo, captured it well.
----- Original Message ---- From: Arlo Bensinger <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, January 25, 2010 9:49:59 AM Subject: Re: [MD] The difference between a Monet and a finger painting [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? 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/ 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/
