[MD] Dawkins a Materialist (is watching?)

[Case]

[Ian]
It clearly has "encoded" within it the organisation of some higher layer
(like a brain or a liver), but maybe not a level higher that might take a
brain to organise (like new york city or an e-mail).

[Arlo]
What I guess I'm arguing against here is the notion that there were these
two cells, and one cell said to other "hey, look, let's form a human body
with a brain and a liver", and the other said, "do you think we'll need a
stomach and legs", and the first said "i guess so, and let's try this
appendix thingy, but if it doesn't work out we'll scrap it", and they went
out and recruited some other cells saying "if we work together to make a
brain, we'll be able to do more things".

[Case]
Exactly, Arlo cells are themselves collection of complex molecules that
behave in extraordinary ways by virtue of the ways they are constructed and
their reactions to their surrounding. No two protein molecules get together
and plan how to build a cell.

It depends on what level of resolution you adopt. Do you want to understand
the complex relationships among molecules or the interactions of cells or
the function of organs or why the flavor of sugar water stimulates the honey
bee.

[Ian]
I think the distinguishing thing about one layer from another, is that it
possesses the resources / information for the NEXT to emerge.

[Arlo]
Sure it does. I just don't think it was a "planned event" for one level to
create the level above it. 

[Case]
And... because the higher levels of complexity involves relationships among
higher orders of stability there is no way to even predict what these new
relationships will involve.

[Ian]
I support the idea that we really have many more levels to explain the whole
of reality, and Pirsig's four are simply pragmatic convention, useful and
valuable, but not fundamental in any explicatory sense.

[Arlo]
I think Pirsig's level mark, in broad strokes, the significant points of
emergence. But each level has quite a bit of gradation in complexity, and
like Case points out, getting closer and closer to the actual "line of
demarcation" things get interesting... like a fractral pattern perhaps?

[Case]
Indeed, the closer to the edge of a boundary condition you get, the fuzzier
the set itself looks. Depending the level of resolution you seek the
boundary can be smooth or infinitely bumpy. Mandelbrot asked, "How long is
the coastline of England?" He determined that it is infinitely long.