[MD] A.I.

[plattholden at gmail.com]

On 21 Jul 2010 at 9:09, ARLO J BENSINGER JR wrote:

[Platt]
Unmanipulated? How about "directed," as in " . . . the decisions that directed
the progress of evolution are, in fact,  Dynamic Quality (Lila, 11)

[Arlo]
Its metaphorical rhetoric that is horrible when taken literally. If you believe
this, you turn the cosmos into a giant supermarionette show, where we are all
just puppets driven by the direction of Qualigod.

[Platt] Another example of your stance that Pirsig really doesn't mean what he 
says. How convenient for you. Anything that doesn't match your preconceptions 
is ignored or said to be "metaphorical." The "direction" of DQ is toward 
betterness. That's basic MOQ.    

[Arlo}
And, jeez, you think Dynamic Quality makes "decisions"? How? Does it have a
mind? Does it think too?

Look, you want to follow your little Qualigod path, be my guest. 

[Platt}
And if you want to remain stuck in purposeless SOM materialism, you're welcome 
to it. 

[Arlo]
My entire point, to get back to it from all your distractions, is to point out
that this is what Pirsig said about the emergence of intellect from biology.

"Mental patterns do not originate out of inorganic nature. They originate out
of society, which originates out of biology which originates out of inorganic
nature... There is no direct scientific connection between mind and matter. ...
Our intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived." (LILA)

Your reply to Ham bypassed this entirely an attempted only to replace "mind
magically appearing from the brain" with "mind being poofed into existence onto
the brain by DQ".

[Platt]
Show me where in my reply to Ham I said, "with mind being poofed into existence 
onto the brain by DQ" 

Anyway, no one argues that by MOQ lights intellectual patterns are independent 
of social patterns any more than breathing is independent of air. You keep 
beating a dead horse, to put in "metaphorically."