[MD] tiny skull... change... nothingness...

[david buchanan]

Micha, Ham and all MOQers:

I think I agree with Micha on both points. As I understand it, the MOQ says 
that experience is reality, which is a way of saying that humanity is the 
measure of all things. Human reality is the only one we get. But I also 
wanted to point out that so-called "intelligent design" makes no sense. The 
idea here is that the structure of reality exhibits a level of complexity 
such that it couldn't have emerged through pure chance. Its says an 
intelligent designer is the best way to explain the beauty and harmony of 
nature. This is totally bogus. All that is accomplished by this lame idea is 
that it pushes the question back. It merely shifts the problem to an 
inscrutible metaphysical realm. I mean, if the universe is too complex to 
exist without an intelligent designer, then the intelligent designer must be 
even more complex. How then do you explain the existence of this designer? 
Are we supposed to think that the creator was created by another creator and 
so on in an infinite regression of intelligent designers? See, the 
intelligent design theory is logically flawed in a serious way, it doesn't 
help to explain anything and it actually makes the problem worse.

I think the apparent harmony and design of the universe is much less 
mysterious from the human-centered perspective, were these beautiful 
patterns are actually of our own making. We don't discover this grand design 
so much as we create it in the ways we choose to slice up and categorize 
things. I mean, the harmony of the crystaline spheres is no longer taken 
seriously by astronomers, but we've been trying to express the universe in 
terms of mathematical precision since the Pythagorian mystics. E=mc2 and all 
that. But I think one of the MOQ's "big ideas" is that Newton didn't 
discover the law of gravity so much as he invented it.

Somebody asked Pirsig if apples obeyed the law of gravity before Newton's 
invention. Pirsig said something like, "no, apples just fell".

Okay, back to my homework.

dmb


Micha said:
>The universe is neither intelligent, nor designed - it is. What design the
>universe could have been is a misapplication of mathematical probability.
>Before the fact there are probabilities, after the fact there are
>certainties. The universe is. You anthropomorphize when you say the 
>universe
>is intelligently designed, or could be. Which brings us to the certainty -
>"man is the measure of all things". This is so simple, that it is easily
>misunderstood, but even here, in this forum, we are attempting to be the
>measure of reality, although most cannot see that - the need to deny the
>truth of the statement "man is the measure of all things" through deities,
>extraterrestrials, or alternative realities is stunning, and for me
>incomprehensible and yet it is undeniable. But I cannot know the truth of
>that statement for you, you must see it for yourself. My earlier posts on
>this subject were an attempt to establish a starting point for a discussion
>on Quality and Pirsig, which was Pirsig's starting point, and yet 
>completely
>lost on those here - strange...in a Pirsig forum. But without understanding
>of that initial statement, you cannot have a meaningful conversation on
>Pirsig, so I will no longer try. I'll just monitor the fumbling, until the
>lights are finally turned on, which of course assumes knowledge of light 
>and
>that appears to be a stretch. ...So long, and thanks for the fish!

Micah asked:
The universe is intelligently designed? Compared to what other design?

Ham replied:
What other design can you compare it with?  Any design you come up with is 
included in the universe or is made possible by it.

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