[MD] Intellectual and Social

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, Platt --


> Hey Steve, Bruce
>
> Bruce's example is an empirical fact established by observation and
> experiment. But, where is the evidence that values are involved?
> How do we convince doubters that the germ-immunity conflict is a
> moral struggle? I mean it's easy to say that all battles are moral 
> battles.
> But, how do you prove it in court?
>
> I'm beginning to suspect that Pirsig's theory is like evolution,
> climate change and God's will because no matter what happens
> the theory applies. ...
>
> I wonder.

So do I, Platt.

Unfortunately, Pirsig's theory IS evolution.  It's the evolution of 
"universal betterness" with or without man's participation.  Evolution 
toward complexity, as in the development of "higher-order" species, has been 
the objectivists' theory ever since Darwin.  It is disturbing to see it 
applied to morality by a philosopher.

For one thing, there is no empirical evidence that organic complexity is any 
more "moral" than low-order simplicity.  Has intellectual development in 
Homo-sapiens made us moral creatures?  Bruce also said "anything that is 
organized into patterns did that out of Dynamic Quality and is Quality 
itself," but this prompted him to ask "what is it that moves things from a 
state of organization back to chaos?  Is that Quality?"  He bases his 
ontology on the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that the usable 
energy in the universe diminishes over time and that the most probable state 
for any natural system in one of disorder.  Some scientists believe this 
refutes the theory of biological evolution.  Here's one:

"Of all the statements that have been made with respect to theories on the 
origin of life, the statement that the Second Law of Thermodynamics poses no 
problem for an evolutionary origin of life is the most absurd. The operation 
of natural processes on which the Second Law of Thermodynamics is based is 
alone sufficient, therefore, to preclude the spontaneous evolutionary origin 
of the immense biological order required for the origin of life."  -- [Duane 
Gish, Ph.D. in biochemistry, UCLA]

But the most grievous aspect of Pirsig's evolutionary thesis is that it 
ignores the cognizant subject of quality and morality, without whose 
sensibility value would be meaningless, as would any effort to improve man's 
well-being.  It makes no sense to talk about Quality or Value as a level we 
"attach to" when we all feel it as that which is immanently desirable, 
inspirational, something to aspire to.  What do you suppose would happen to 
the Beauty you revere so much if there were no human beings to  appreciate 
it?  If man's motives and behavior play no part in the creation process, 
human existence has less meaning than a spring-driven cuckoo clock.

I sense that you're beginning to get my drift, Platt.  Perhaps my 
anthropocentric universe no longer seems so strange to you.

Essentially yours,
Ham