[MD] Chance

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Arlo Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu>:

> [Platt]
> It fills in the knowledge gap left by appeals to "chance" which in 
> effect means, "I don't know."
> 
> [Arlo]
> "Chance" has nothing to do with "I don't know". Chance means without 
> pre-planning, pre-ordainment or the active ordering of an 
> "intelligent designer". "Chance" says that when the first two 
> subatomic patterns united there was no pre-conceived "plan" or 
> "purpose", they did so following only an undefined and unplanned 
> "betterness". It was only AFTER the fact when the moment of "AHA!" 
> hits, that these patterns become "stable".
> 
> Despite the desire to turn Quality into Quali-god, an "intelligent 
> designer" who ordered the universe specifically to bring Man, 
> Glorious Man into being, and then sits back and revels in the 
> splendor of Man's Free Will and Independence, it just ain't so. 
> "Quality" is not a consciousness that gives on whit about whether or 
> not "man" ever existed. The chance event(s) that ended the millions 
> of years of dino rule was not part of a "Divine Plan of Quali-god" to 
> turn dinos into oil and bring about the Reign of Man. For millions of 
> years biological patterns followed Quality and all was Good. Chance 
> shakes things up, and after the subsequent "AHA'S!" maybe something 
> new will appear, or maybe not.
> 
> Chance says there is not a "let's make a man", but rather an after 
> the fact "wow! this works! let's keep it!". And should a passing 
> asteroid smash into the Earth and end the Reign of Man, it will 
> happen not out of Divine Plan nor will "Quality" care. Whatever 
> patterns survive will continue to respond to "betterness", and maybe 
> something new will appear, or maybe not. There is no plan, only after 
> the fact patterns.

How do you know there's no plan? As far as Pirsig is concerned,
there may be a plan. "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)

 



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