[carrie] hi ron, [Krimel] Hi welcome aboard but as you can see I am Krimel. Ron is X.
[carrie] sorry to butt in. I was really enjoying your explanation of terms. I'm somewhat new to philosophy, the worst kind of dilettante, an english major drop out who married a professor and had babies (grin) but I got stuck understanding your explanation of chaos: [Krimel] Don't be sorry. That's what forum's for. Chaos: > I have tried a zillion time to explain this here and seem to have failed. > Let's try this one from Nietzsche, > > "The overall character of the world is, for all eternity, chaos; not > in the sense that it lacks necessity, but rather in the sense that it > lacks order, articulation , form , beauty , wisdom , and whatever else > our aesthetic anthropomorphisms might say." All of those things: lacks > order, articulation, form , beauty , wisdom and not discovered in the > world around us. They are invented by us in our ceaseless "aesthetic anthropomorphism."" > > Ok what did he mean that it has necessity, and yet is chaotic? And I don't quite get what he means by "invented by us" and yet not real. Aren't our inventions, isn't all of reality in fact, experience through our inventiveness? It sounds wrong somehow. [Krimel] The terms chaos and randomness do not mean that things happen for no reason or are not determined. If you flip a coin the outcome will be random, and yet entirely determined by the laws of physics. At least that is one way to put it and a way that Nietzsche wouldn't. He had an aversion to the whole idea of causal chains of determinism. Determinism by the mid-1880's was claiming that if we knew the position and velocity of every particle in the universe we could calculate the entire history of the universe both past and present. This was articulated by Laplace who when, asked about God, replied, "I have no need of that hypothesis." Nietzsche wasn't buying the God hypothesis either but he thought science was no better. In fact his chief complaint against science was that after having disposed of the theological Absolute, science was doing nothing more than building a new set of Absolutes in the form of the "Law of Science." Nietzsche thought this was absurd because every Absolute formulation did little more than answer questions asked in a purely human voice. How could such a fleeting beings expect satisfaction from Absolute answers. That is what he meant by "aesthetic anthropomorphism." We only ask human question and we only get human answers. It is a bit like the drunk looking for his car keys under a street lamp because that is where he finds enough light to see. This, Nietzsche thought was as just as absurd for the scientist as the drunks. Nietzsche thought the "universe" the entire cosmic order was meaningless and purposeless. But he thought that eventually people could come to understand how liberating and joyous this could be. This is what he means by chaos, meaningless and devoid of purpose. But chaos is not without necessity. Necessity just means thing have to happen in a certain way and not some other. In this way "chains of causality" are replaced with webs or networks of influence. To use another alcohol related example: in Newton's world physical and mathematical laws determine how billiard balls will bounce around and collide on a pool table. But for Nietzsche these laws cannot determine the outcome of a game of pool. Winning a game of pool does involve certain physical and mathematical relationships but is also influenced by the amount of alcohol consumed in proposition to the attractiveness of the spectators, or the amount of light available in the bar and the volume of the Jukebox in fact everything in the environment of the pool table has some influence on who wins. Pirsig shows a dim apprehension of this, even though he can't resist anthropomorphizing, when he says, "Biological evolution can be seen as a process by which weak Dynamic forces at a subatomic level discover stratagems for overcoming huge static inorganic forces at a superatomic level. They do this by selecting superatomic mechanisms in which a number of options are so evenly balanced that a weak Dynamic force can tip the balance one way or another." He highlights the affinity, I would say identity of DQ and chaos when he says, "To cling to Dynamic Quality alone apart from any static patterns is to cling to chaos." A quote that lies outside the orthodox cannon of the MoQ. Much like this one: "It doesn't make any sense. It seems to say that all life is headed toward chaos, since chaos is the only alternative to structural patterns that a law-bound metaphysics can conceive." It is pretty clear that Pirsig doesn't understand chaos the way Nietzsche and the chaos theorists do, he shares your confusion and you can hear it when he says, "It doesn't make sense." The same dim apprehension and withdrawal are also here: "a 'Metaphysics of Quality' is essentially a contradiction in terms, a logical absurdity. It would be almost like a mathematical definition of randomness. The more you try to say what randomness is the less random it becomes." I would say he gets it right both times and just wanted to avoid terminology likely to produce the kind of confusion you experienced. But I don't claim to speak for Pirsig only to voice my reading of him. As you will soon see this is likely to provoke a chorus of sycophants reading from their catechism. Never-the-less, I hope that helped. By the way, thanks for noticing the poem in the other thread. Anytime you see poetry in my posts the author is really Case. He is a Bard and jumps in from time to time when I am not looking. I am a Wizard and have little patience for such vagary. But in the off chance that you were sincere and because you mentioned it Case has urged me to include what follows with a brief explanation. I only agreed because it does sort of get to the issue at hand. Generally speaking I prefer to just blow stuff up. This is about a communal ritual of prayer to the Goddess of Chaos and Discord, Eris, the patron of the followers of the Discordian Revelation. A dervish is a Sufi Mystic. I think they smoke a lot of hash and spin around in circles. The last line is an allusion to the quote Horse used to attach to the end of his e-mails. You might try reading it out loud... Tossing a coin before the Rose Bowl Is a communal prayer to Eris. The spinning coin../\/\/.o0o.o0o.o0o. That``` That--- That___ Deterministic''' Dynamic;;; Dervish,,, Dancing::: For the... Goddess of Strife. Watch! You might See A sphere of edges; The concentric radii of milling Mirrored glimmers of Stadium light... Reflected colored jerseys... Mascots and totems... A shimmering skin of photons The texture of all likelihoods Rolled into a ball. In spin Head and tail Become One. Mullet? When Eris has had her way with him The Dervish lies spent. Between the wrist and palm of the Field's highest moral authority. The call to Eris is made; A question asked by the Assembled; Pledged to her will. Every fan calls to her in a different way. Lokiiii Lilithhhh Lady Luckckckck Anansiiii Buddhaaaa Motherrrrr Puck In this ecumenical moment, All prayers are answered. There's consensual satisfaction. The deed of the Dervish Is a ritual deed. His spinning for a communal need. To grant a boon To steal a choice We must speak With a Common Voice So the Dervish prays of Eris That she take her leave And all the Strife and Discord Hidden up her sleeve. The Ref gestures the will of Eris. A Stadium of supplicants Shout praises to She who fixes Fate. The Ref pockets the dervish; A piece of loose change Clinking, "Wow, what a ride!" 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
