[MD] Science and Values

[Platt Holden]

> [Platt]
> The brain reaches a certain level of complexity and "oops," you get
> consciousness. 
> 
> [Arlo]
> And how do you see the MOQ disputing this? Did "consciousness" exist
> before the
> brain reached a certain level of complexity? If so, where? Where was
> "consciousness" ten million years ago?

At last, very intelligent questions. Only you are a little late coming to 
the party. I asked the same questions years ago -- and got Pirsig's answer 
in Lila's Child:

Platt: "As I understand it, the MOQ equates Quality with direct experience. 
In turn, experience creates static patterns of value. The problem is - how 
could inorganic static patterns be created unless inorganic entities like 
atoms were able to experience?"

Pirsig Note 30: "I think the answer is that inorganic objects experience 
events but do not react to them biologically socially or intellectually.  
They react to these experiences inorganically, according to the laws of 
physics."

> I gather what this boils down to is "preconceived intent", where any
> "theory"
> that does not pay homage to an external, "quasi-sentient"
> planner/controller is
> to be ridiculed as being "value-free". If I am right, then the ONLY answer
> you
> would accept from science is "a designer made consciousness", worded in
> various
> ways but that would be the jist. 

Guess you missed this (like you've missed a lot about the MOQ):

"There is no quarrel whatsoever between the Metaphysics of Quality and the 
Darwinian Theory of Evolution. Neither is there a quarrel between the 
Metaphysics of Quality and the "teleological" theories which insist that 
life has some purpose. What the Metaphysics of Quality has done is unite 
these opposed doctrines within a larger metaphysical structure that 
accommodates both of them without contradiction." (Lila, 11)