Hello everyone On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 12:38 PM, David Thomas <[email protected]> wrote: >>> [Dan] >>> I don't care if you're a trained biologist or not (I am seriously >>> leaning towards the latter). You obviously don't know much about the >>> MOQ when you make statements like this: >> >> [Mark] >> No, Dan, I am not asking you to care, this is simply a discussion of >> MoQ and the terms used therein. >> >>> >>>> Mark previously: >>>> I just seems to me that we are using the word Evolution as a catch >>>> phrase for something that it is not. It may seem like it relates to >>>> the sciences, but it most certainly does not. The term provides >>>> practical awareness in biology, but I do not see it in MoQ. >>> >>> Dan: >>> How can you say this? It makes no sense whatsoever. The four levels >>> share an evolutionary history as described by Robert Pirsig in LILA. >>> We are not using evolution as a catch phrase and if you think so I >>> suggest a refresher course in whatever school of biology you did your >>> training. >> >> [Mark] >> Dan, if I may be so bold, you say absolutely nothing in your response. >> The topic of this thread was evolution. My question was what do You >> mean by evolution. I am asking you for your opinion. What do you >> mean by "share an evolutionary history"? You can choose not to >> respond, but if you do, answer the question and don't just become >> emotional. Perhaps it is beneath you, so humor me. If you had read >> the rest of my post besides just that which you responded to, then >> maybe you would have understood my position. Taking a just a part to >> respond to is immoral, imho. >>> Dan >>> Arrrgggh!! This is so frustrating! > > [Dave butts in} > > This frustration, in part, may be due to the "evolution" in the use of the > word evolution.
Dan: Hi Dave No, not really. The frustration I feel is that someone is telling me that I don't know what I am talking about when in fact they haven't shown that they have a clue as to what the MOQ is all about. I have repeatedly tried to engage Mark intelligently and have been met repeatedly with the same tired answers... answers that indicate to me he has yet to take the time to read LILA. Hence, he simply doesn't care. He wants to chat. Fine. Go chat somewhere else! This isn't a chat room! Dave: 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. Dan: I think RMP makes the case in LILA that there are four levels of static quality that share an evolutionary history. Natural selection would seem to indicate biological evolutionary forces at work. I think Darwin's work was primarily about that. The MOQ also states that as time has gone by, social and intellectual evolutionary forces have shaped our culture as well. I agree this isn't always easy to see. It is subtle. And it takes time to appreciate that about the MOQ, in my opinion. Dave: For example, "evolution" only appears one > time in ZaMM: Dan: I think that can possibly be explained by the MOQ not being fully formed when ZMM was written. I am guessing the seed was there but the growth was not complete. Dave: > > [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. Dan: Yes that is interesting, I agree. Still, I (dimly) recall being a teenager and thinking how much smarter I was than my father. And being amazed and taken aback a few years later at how much more intelligent my father had grown. But, isn't Einstein talking about the evolution of scientific methodology here? Wouldn't it better pertain to intellectual patterns of value rather than biological patterns? Definitely something to think about. Thank you, Dan 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
