[MD] Choosing Chance

[Krimel]

[Steve]
Randomness is a useful concept for making decisions but a poor choice
for a metaphysical description. If we just take randomness as an
epistemological notion, then saying that something is random is a way
of saying that you don't know what will happen, but you do know the
relative frequency of its occurence. As a teacher of statistics, I
know that there is a lot of mileage to get from this concept of
randomness and also that nothing is lost if we just stick to the
epistemological view of randomness as a term that applies to specific
perspectives and what can be known from a given perspective rather
than as a metaphysical notion describing what sorts of things possess
the property that they cannot ever be known even from a
perspectiveless God's-Eye-View.

[Krimel]
As someone well versed in statistic you should know better than this. In the
random world of coin tossing it is entirely possible to toss 1 trillion
heads in a row. But if you were on the 500 billionth toss the outcome of the
next toss might seem to be certain or appear have some cause. I have argued
repeatedly that the MoQ is or at least should be exactly what Pirsig said it
might be like: a Metaphysics of Randomness. DQ is chance (randomish patterns
of head or tails. SQ is statistical anomalies like 1 trillion heads. Both
result from random outcomes.

[Steve]
It is better to drop such metaphysical claims about the intrinsic
nature of preferences (free choice?, random?, deterministic?...) and
simply say that we aren't in an epistemological context to know the
whole story of the evolution of the entire universe to be able to
describe the origin of our particular patterns of preferences with
great specificity, but the MOQ gives us a useful "big picture" to
describe the evolution of value patterns on a broad scale.

[Krimel]
I say it is better to embrace randomness and our responses to it, as
integral to epistemology and metaphysics. Evolution is entirely about how
static patterns emerge and persist in a random universe. Until the MoQ wises
up on this score, the "big picture" it offers will remain a shadow of what
might have been if Pirsig hadn't chicken out on his Metaphysics of
Randomness.