[MD] MoQ and Harmony

[Case]

Ah Platt,
Such a lovely question reveals the source for your mistake and such a
wonderful quote on top of it. Please note the change in the thread title.
Thanks you made my day!
Case

[Platt]
If everything was always in constant balance, nothing would ever change.
According to Pirsig, the system is tilted by Dynamic Quality -- the life
force that drives the system to create better and better things.

[Gene]
Only if you consider them as outside the system. From further away those
things are simply part of the balance. The balance is between the static and
dynamic. Sure they're in opposition, but if one goes too far the system
breaks. They must be kept in constant balance. I think that's what case is
talking about.

[Case]
Gene got it but mostly right. 
The kind of balance that is confusing Platt is a static balance where things
totally cancel each other out. Here and now this does not happen because
there is so much built in uncertainty; from quantum states, to the constant
inflow of solar energy, to big rocks falling out of the sky. That is why
harmony is a better term, The Way is even better. It is the edge of chaos
that twists and turns because the really nasty forces are balanced. They
cancel each other out. That is, they become static and predictable. Only
then can the small dynamic force work their magic. 

[Platt]
If anything, evolution is about unbalance and disharmony

[Case]
Life occurs here and now because the physical forces like heat and gravity
are in balance. The chemical composition of the earth surface contains the
right balance of elements, particularly water and carbon. SA summed it well
by quoting the sage Goldilocks.

(Warning: Incoming dig at the error of calling the levels discrete) 

There is a certain irony in the quote you offered up. Pirsig uses the carbon
example and all organic chemistry is based on carbon molecules but these
molecules are excluded from the biological level. 

Pirsig is pointing to the dynamic qualities of carbon. This is something
every biology student knows: 

"...this ambiguity of carbon's bonding preferences was the situation the
weak Dynamic subatomic forces needed. Carbon bonding was a balanced
mechanism they could take over."

Notice that Pirsig is talking about the many different ways carbon achieves
balance. Small dynamic forces can influence these states.

"It was a vehicle they could steer to all sorts of freedom by selecting
first one bonding preference and then another in an almost unlimited variety
of ways. And what a variety has been chosen. Today there are more than two 
million known compounds of carbon, roughly twenty times as many as all the
other known chemical compounds in the world."

What is crucial is the shear diversity of possible combinations of carbon.
That gives it Quality. Keep this in mind because in nature "Diversity" is
the highest Good.

"The chemistry of life is the chemistry of carbon. What distinguishes all
the species of plants and animals is, in the final analysis, differences in
the way carbon atoms choose to bond."

Dynamic quality is nothing more or less than that number of interesting
possibilities that can occur when other forces are balanced.

Or look at it this way; nature is entropic. It is all about energy
dissipating. It is not a question of, if, but of how long it takes. Given
that everything is balanced, just so, there is a constant stream of sunlight
energizing our planet's surface and dissipating into space. Most of this
energy is reflected away and dissipates quickly. Some of it is trapped as
chemical energy and dissipates more slowly in the form of chemical process
like, life. The inflow of photons provides allows, no, forces complexity
into the environment. Life is solar energy bouncing around on its way to its
final resting place. Our lives hang in this balance. 

In my view if Ham if looking for the Primary Source of things he should "set
the controls for the heart of the Sun."

[Platt]
Dynamic forces took a balanced system at the inorganic level and 
smashed it to pieces, leading to all sorts of new evolutionary forms. 
Similarly, a meteor broke up the balance of the dinosaur's world to 
allow for a whole new world of higher mammals to evolve.

[Case}
Evolution is the study of the harmony, the beauty if you prefer, that arises
from this balance. It is not guaranteed. All sorts of ugly things like big
frickin' rocks from space can disrupt this balance. So far over time new
balances have been restored. They are not better, they are just different.
As Gould states it, this process is called punctuated equilibrium. That is
balance upset then restored in a new form. The only direction in nature is
toward entropy. It is a Dead end. But life on earth is a self sustaining
reaction; fire that began a few billion years ago and sustains itself in
every living thing. If we get lucky, every once in awhile, we get to throw a
log into the fire. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

[Platt]
Balance and harmony sounds lovely. But evolution goes nowhere without 
discordant mutations and disordered environmental changes.

[Case]
Disasters are one source of creativity in nature. Life survives in the face
of disaster because of it. Your frequent disparagement of diversity is
always troubling because it reflects your failure to understand that, if
there is a Highest Good in nature, it is diversity. Diversity insures that
life goes on even if the distribution of traits changes.

Mutations are a source of new traits. They only persist if they find harmony
in existing forms or become the source of new harmonies.

Evolution is the saga of opportunities seized and balances restored.