In Pirsig's second book, Lila, he returns to examine what the romantic-classical synthesis looks like from another perspective: the moral perspective. He imagin

In Pirsig's second book, Lila, he returns to examine what the romantic-classical synthesis looks like from another perspective: the moral perspective. He imagines the moral qualities of the world. What are the moral qualities of a motorcycle? How ought a motorcycle to behave? Pirsig proposes a thought experiement, the "chemistry teacher" experiment, where a chemistry teacher is left on a beach to rot. Through this experiment, he concludes that the morality of chemical objects, of atoms and molecules, is precisely the rules of chemistry. Indeed, Pirsig supposes that most of the natural world is like this, where things do as they ought already. (I would close the door by suggesting that, in the Discordian tradition, the morality of people, and indeed any sapient creature, is to do as we like. This not only neatly lines up with Pirsig's philosophy, but also gives that the Free Will Theorem still holds and is useful!) So, what is the morality of software and computers? The morality of physical computers is quantum electronics, and the morality of software is information theory and mathematics itself. I'm humbled.