Spot on Dave (T) (And Mark & Dan mentioned) I certainly adopt "evolution" in a pan-neo-Darwinian way - with both positive and negative selection processes - in fact a view evolved by reading (and digesting) Pirsig and MoQ. But we always have these narrow vs broad definitional problems with the debate here. Those who prefer tight definitions and those who don't.
Incidentally Mark said to Dan [Mark] > No, Dan, I am not asking you to care, this is simply a discussion of > MoQ and the terms used therein. And I say therein lies our problem - though police alert ;-) People who don't care should not be debating. Productive debate is far more than a "simple discussion of terms". Ian PS What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding ? On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 6:38 PM, David Thomas <[email protected]> wrote: > > [Dave butts in} > > This frustration, in part, may be due to the "evolution" in the use of the > word evolution. Since Darwin's "Origin" there has been a slow but steady > drift of evolution's primary meaning from "process of formation or growth; > development" to shorthand for his biological theory, "evolution > (growth,formation,development, unfolding etc) by natural selection". And it > is not always easy in the work of Pirsig or others to say for certain > exactly which way it is meant. For example, "evolution" only appears one > time in ZaMM: > > [ZaMM pg 64] > " About this Einstein had said, "Evolution has shown that at any given > moment out of all conceivable constructions a single one has always proved > itself absolutely superior to the rest," and let it go at that. But to > Phædrus that was an incredibly weak answer. The phrase "at any given moment" > really shook him. Did Einstein really mean to state that truth was a > function of time? To state that would annihilate the most basic presumption > of all science! > But there it was, the whole history of science, a clear story of > continuously new and changing explanations of old facts. The time spans of > permanence seemed completely random he could see no order in them. Some > scientific truths seemed to last for centuries, others for less than a year. > Scientific truth was not dogma, good for eternity, but a temporal > quantitative entity that could be studied like anything else." > > My interpretation is that Einstein is speaking about Darwin's theory of > "evolution." Isn't interesting that at 15 the precocious child Phaedrus > finds Einstein answer "incredibly weak" while the much older and successful > author Pirsig basically creates the whole of the MoQ by interpreting > Einstein "evolution" as all of reality. > > Dave > > > > > > > > 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
