hi all ROG: > But, even if we accept that evolution leads to increasing dynamicness, we > still must ask...... Is evolution necessarily more moral? Why couldn't we > say that the stability of pattern survival is more moral? Or nihilism? Or > de-evolution? Or that it is complexity that is more moral? Or that > everything is moral and that evolution and devolution and stability and > complexity and nihilism are all just Maya? Pirsig could have said any of > these. But he didn't. 3WD Is evolution [even if accepted as increasing in complexity or dynamicness] necessarily more moral? When stumped by hard questions like this I often turn to my dictionary in a effort to understand, in this context, What does moral mean? My Webster's New World 3rd College Edition list 12 different contexts and definitions. Then if you accept Pirsig's claim that [values ='s morals] and add in the 13 value definitions you find 25 different possibilities to choose from. It's easy to see why he said: "Morality is not a simple set of rules. It's a very complex struggle of conflicting patterns of values. This conflict is the residue of EVOLUTION. As new patterns EVOLVE they come into conflict with old ones. Each stage of EVOLUTION creates in its wake a wash of problems. Lila. p163 The definition of "moral" that jumped out at me this time was #6. "based on a strong probability. [a moral certainty]" One could say that the moment that defined the beginning of Post-Modern Era , with all its ongoing angst, was when man's search for certainty in physical reality ended with the ascendancy of uncertainty and it's counterpart probability. "In the sharp formulation of the law of causality-- "if we know the present exactly, we can calculate the future"- it is not the conclusion that is wrong but the premise. --Heisenberg, in uncertainty principle paper, 1927 After Heisenberg the nagging question was; If " we can't know the present exactly" even in the smallest physical actions, how "can we calculate the future" consequences of any action? Now after nearly 80 years and the rise and fall of numerous nihilistic and existential theories the "good" is finally starting to show through. What the uncertain principle first did was close the era of "determinism" and "materialism" and started the investigation into theories of reality based on "probabilities." These "moral" approaches are " based on strong probabilit[ies]", with "probability" defined as, "the quality or state of being likely to occur; that can be reasonably but not certainly be expected" In "ism" form "probabilism" is defined as "the doctrine that certainty in knowledge is impossible and that probability is a sufficient basis for action and belief" Or combined, an evolutionary "moralism" might be "the doctrine that certainty in knowledge is impossible but that strong probabilities, or qualities, or states of being, that can be reasonably, but not certainly be expected, is a sufficient basis for action and belief." Now why is this important? Because implicit in uncertainty and probability is some degree of choice, or freedom, even at the sub-atomic level. Pirsig puts it this way: "The only difference between causation and the value is that the word "cause" implies absolute certainty whereas the implied meaning of "value" is one of preference. In classical science it was supposed that the world always works in terms of absolute certainty and that "cause" is the more appropriate word to describe it. But in modern quantum physics all that is changed. Particles "prefer" to do what they do. An individual particle is not absolutely committed to one predictable behavior. What appears to be an absolute cause is just a very consistent pattern of preferences." Pirsig, Robert M., Lila. An inquiry into morals. New York (Bantam Books) 1991, 104 These preferences or "freedoms of choice" becomes more important with the evolution of living systems that have the ability to pass along past evolutionary histories via RNA and DNA and of even greater value with the evolution of sentient beings able to pass along knowledge by social and intellectual patterns. This is because evolutionary process based in "uncertainty" and "probability" creates a huge numbers of similar, parallel, but because of choice, subtly different, individual evolutionary paths each level or advance with a more inclusive and more probable grasp on past and present realities. So rather than a "random walk" or pure " trial and error" selection, when "good" is selected there is built in, based on the transmitted evolutionary history, the "strong probability" those reproductions will have similar "good" qualities plus the ability of these 2nd generation "goods" have to make choices, ranging from subtle to radical, without endangering the present "good" inherent in all the "other goods" of that particular evolutionary line. So rather than "only the good die young" the good lives on in an evolutional hierarchy always seeking "strong probabilities" for the union with ever greater good. 3WD On hierarchies: "Hiero-means sacred or holy, and -arch means governance or rule. Introduced by the great sixth century Christian mystic Saint Dionysisu the Areopagite, the "Hierarchies" referred to nine celestial orders, with Seraphim and Cerubim at the top and the archangels and angels at the bottom... These orders were ranked because each successive order was more inclusive and more encompassing and in that sense "higher" ............... As used in modern psychology, evolutionary theory, and systems theory, a hierarchy is simply a ranking of orders of events according to their "holistic capacity" In any developmental sequence, what is whole at one stage becomes part of a larger whole at the next stage." [Wilbur- Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: 17-21] MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
