Re: Function, Symbiosis - value judgements

["Dan Fiscus" <***>]

Tim,

Here are those two quotes/passages I mentioned that present different views
on how or whether to tell good/bad, right/wrong in terms of human actions
in context of a biosphere, home, environment.

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and
beauty of
the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." Aldo Leopold
in "A
Sand County Almanac", 1948.

Two things I like here are that he uses life as an adjective to describe
a kind of
community; and he covers both the quantitative (integrity and stability) as
well as the qualitative (beauty) aspects of life as community.

I don't have my copy of Mitchell's translation of Tao Te Ching here, but
I can
paraphrase a neat passage in his notes. He credits this story to some
book or
author, but I forget which/who. The gist of the story is - A man's horse ran
away and all the people of his village came to offer their condolences
for his
loss. A sage said, "How can you tell that this is not a good thing?"
Later the
man's horse returned with another horse of another breed and the two created
very strong offspring together. The villagers offered their
congratulations, but
the sage said, "How can you tell that this is not a disaster?" The man
became
rich and successful in the horse breeding/selling business. In all the
horse
business going on his son was actively involved as a worker. One day he was
thrown by a horse and broke his hip. The villagers came and offered their
sympathy, but the sage said again, "How can you tell that this is not a
good
thing?" Later a war broke out and most of the young men were conscripted
and went to fight, and the majority that did were killed in the war. Due to
the broken hip the man's son was spared this fate.

Mitchell uses this story to back up the passages in the Tao that suggest the
wisest approach is to not label, assign, judge things as good or bad, but to
remain impartial, to embrace both aspects. He and the Tao also seem to
imply, though, that impartial is good, or that for world events or
dynamics,
"its all good".

I see "value" in both Leopold's assertive judgement as well as the Tao's
radical
impartiality. It is not an easy marriage but requires a kind of permanent
acceptance of paradox or unsettledness or uncertainty. As such it seems to
me that all decision making or policy that seeks to be science-based or
rational will forever require a leap of faith to span at least some
uncertainty
and unknowability. We can make our best model, know it is incomplete, but
then act based partly on what "feels right" with the model aiding but myriad
other factors contributing, some of which we may not be able to explain or
even articulate in words.

Dan