[MD] The difference between a Monet and a finger painting

[Krimel]

[Steve]
I read that Hawking essay you linked to. Very interesting. I don't see
anything there that is inconsistent with Pirsig and I agree that the
Creationism debate is "probably the explanation foreading into Pirsig
things he simply did not say."

[Krimel]
I used to think the same thing but if you do a careful reading of Chapter 11
I think you will find that Pirsig does say these things. He advances the
argument that evolution runs counter to the laws of thermodynamics and that
somehow the MoQ reconciles evolution with purposive, teleological agency in
the cosmos.

Steve:
I think the problem that people see in the above is that they take Pirsig to
mean that life literally defies or breaks physical laws whereas I think he
should be read to only mean that life opposes certain tendencies that we
infer from physical laws and the behavior of nonliving things without
actually breaking any laws. Note that the Hawking description of life agrees
the MOQ...

[Krimel]
I think Pirsig's use of intentional and anthropomorphic language can be read
as a literary device rather like Dennett's intentional stance but I fear he
pushes it too far and does in fact cross the line. His choice of terminology
leads to the kind of confusing mishmash we hear from Bo and the dense
sputtering of Platt. Both can say outrageously nonsensical things and
rightly point out that Pirsig agrees with them in both style and substance.

I don't think Hawking's would make a claim like: 

"Chemistry professors are unstable mixtures of predominantly unstable
compounds which, in the exclusive presence of the sun's heat, decay
irreversibly into simpler organic and inorganic compounds. That's a
scientific fact.
The question is: Then why does nature reverse this process? What on earth
causes the inorganic compounds to go the other way? It isn't the sun's
energy. We just saw what the sun's energy did. It has to be something else.
What is it?"

And I suspect the Pirsig would not agree with this from Hawking:

"... a computer virus is a program that will make copies of itself in the
memory of a computer, and will transfer itself to other computers. Thus it
fits the definition of a living system, that I have given. Like a biological
virus, it is a rather degenerate form, because it contains only instructions
or genes, and doesn't have any metabolism of its own. Instead, it reprograms
the metabolism of the host computer, or cell."