[MD] expanded list Platt

[Arlo Bensinger]

[John]
Life is defined as that which can react to its environment creatively 
- choice being the magic word.  If there is no choice in the matter, 
there is no life.

[Arlo]
To clarify then, you're arguing that, at least, everything from 
viruses to cells, Ribosomes to "Cytochrome b", are all "intelligent"?

And you basis is for this that these things can all react "creatively".

How "creatively" do you see cells act? And how much more is this 
than, say, a proton that responds to its environment by forming a 
carbon atom, or helium, or magnesium?

Also, if we go by the MOQ, where Pirsig has indicated that inorganic 
patterns have formed by subatomic particles responding "creatively", 
then would we not have to extend "intelligence" down to this level? 
Even if you side with Platt in thinking that subatomic particles 
"lost" the ability to respond to DQ (I imagine such a skill can be 
gained or lost, doled out or rescinded?), then at the very least 
you'd have to agree that subatomic particles WERE intelligent at one point.

How does this help us understand "intelligence"? We've defined it so 
broadly as to make it pretty much a meaningless concept. And add to 
this Platt's original claim that "Quality has intelligence", and 
what's left? Now, by your definition, we have a Quality that exhibits 
choice? Not the patterns responding to Quality, mind you, but Quality 
ITSELF that makes choices about things.

Now if Quality is intelligent, and Quality is out there making 
choices and ordering the cosmos (which includes "us"), that puts us 
right back into the Great Supermarionette Show that Quality is directing.

So on one hand, by reducing the concept of "intelligence" to 
subatomic particles, we strip the term of pretty much any meaning 
whatsoever. On the other, by extending it to Quality we turn an 
agenic cosmos into a puppet show. Because if "Quality is 
intelligent", and its Quality that's making the choices, then your 
argument that "life is choice" is stripped away. What choice do we 
have, when its the Intelligent Quality that's doing the choosing?

To solve the first problem, why not just say "all patterns are 
capable of responding to DQ within a repertoire of possibility 
enabled and constrained by their level and their complexity"? I know. 
It's not a bumper-sticker. And to solve the second. why not just say 
"intelligence, the ability to encode, manipulate and communicate 
abstract symbols representing experience, is the evolutionary result 
of this response-to-DQ process, enabling a very sophisticated 
repertoire of possibility"?