Hi Arlo, Thanks for your replies. I will take out the University improvement stuff, since this was just in answer to a question of yours. They were just ideas off the top of my head, and I am not sure how much I can (or want to) defend them. The overall concept was one of a balance between dogma and progress. However, I will make a reply to your evolution passages below.
On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 4:25 PM, ARLO J BENSINGER JR <[email protected]> wrote: > [Mark] > So, in my opinion, the theory [of evolution] has not advanced at all. > > [Arlo] > As I just mentioned in my reply to John, there are a lot of open ends here, > and > I'm going to address the ones I think are most important, if I skip over one > you want to revisit, please let me know. > > I think the theory has evolved, not only do we understand the processes > better, > research across many fields has evolved greatly because of gains in this area. [Mark] The original theory was consolidated by a guy called Darwin with the following book: "The origin of species by means of natural selection; or, The preservation of favored races in the struggle for life" This is was termed the evolution of species which created a dialectical opposition between what a species was made of, and what was selecting for it. That which survived was named the fittest, which only meant that it survived, nothing more. As it stands, this theory has not changed. All research that supports this theory is still based on adaptive changes that meet environmental demands. So when I state that there has been little change in theory, that is what I mean. It is still primitive in its proposition. The faster a species can propagate, the more flexible it is to adapt. There is no driving force to survive, only to change. Therefore the concept of a struggle for life is simply a teleological statement for adaptive survival of a species, which is passive. There has been little written on the process of natural selection itself, except that it may be somewhat random. So random mutation facing random selection, causes ordered life. In my opinion, any proclamation of randomness is simply another word for God. If we do not understand it, we call it random. In this way, the theory has not evolved either, it is still based on mysticism. > > And, if you primary complaint is that Quality explains things Evolution does > not, then at the least we can point to, again, Ant and David Granger (and > let's > include Henry Gurr, etc.) HAVE hurdled the wall and Quality IS now making > gains > within the Academy. I share your frustration that it has been slow, but > nonetheless we are moving forward. > [Mark] I do not have a complaint that Quality explains things Evolution does not, since evolution does not explain much. My only complaint is the use of the term evolution for Quality. If Quality is evolving, then what is the pressure causing this evolution? There must be something outside of Quality causing it to evolve, since evolution is directional. Things do not evolve on their own, by definition (at least in biology, philosophy may be different). We can say that Quality is all, and that its expression is evolving. Again we need some pressure from somewhere for this to happen. I am approaching this from the viewpoint of a biologist who has spent some time learning about evolution. This is not necessarily a problem if taken in a layman's sense, and does not really do much to Quality Metaphysics, in my opinion, whether there is evolution or not. I agree that movement forward at any rate is good. Many disciplines move forward on a number of fronts or schools of thought. If we were to leave this up to a few people, we may have to wait a while. I fully appreciate that Pirsig only started something, and to keep resorting to quotes of his is not very fruitful. He started this in about 1974, and it has been growing in some peoples minds for the last 35 years. Oh, one final point on a statement of yours (that I deleted) saying that nobody in the Academy fears new ideas. I would have to disagree. There is constant fear that one's own position will be destroyed by a new idea. New ideas are suppressed much more than they are accepted. This is a predominant aspect of Academia, in my opinion. It is not just a bunch of congenial professors having coffee. The competition is awesome. Groups hold together defending each other. Dissenters become outcasts. I have seen this. Personally I have always stayed out of this group behavior. Cheers, Mark > > > 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/md/archives.html > 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/md/archives.html
