what would be the result if morphy had played up against kasparov?

Ok maybe I said that wrong, Morphy blindfolded would beat kasparov unblindfolded.

Kasparov would beat Morphy.

Kasparov lived in a time where chess theory was more advanced and where competition was rife.

You can't compare two people from different epochs. 

Morphy was an innovator of chess; something like the great great great great great great grandfather of the modern grandmaster. 

Using the same analogy, Kasporov would be one of his many great great great great great great grandchildren.

The progression of any game or art is the same. Without Bach, there would be no Baroque era, and without it, there would be no Classicists like Haydn or Mozart, no Beethoven, the shepherd that lead the people to  Romanticism, and no Stravinky or Rimsky-Korsokov. All of them played a role in the evolution of music. 

Kasparov would have been the chess counterpart of Rimsky-Korsokov while Morphy would have been a Mozart. Their music cannot be compared to each other because of the sheer difference in style in their time periods (20th century vs. classical), and thus, whether one is better than the other is independent of scientific determination and boils down to individual tastes. 

Good point VULPES_VULPES.

it takes a willingness not to accept authority for the sake of authority.

I know it's been over a year, but I'm really distressed that nobody seems to have corrected you in that time. Newton invented Calculus. Algebra was invented long before. It was arguably in use by the Islamic mathematicians of Europe's "dark ages".

Paul Morphy would be hammered.

But if you gave Morphy 5 years of master chess books and expereince in 2013, he would get an IM title and beat some weaker GMs.

Hmm.. if Kasparov did meet Morphy over a long match, say 20 or 30 games plus, I bet Kasparov would be gentleman enough to either forgo his opening preparation advantage after securing a couple of wins straight from the opening, or share his opening notes with Morphy. I believe Kasparov does want to prove he is better at actually playing chess, and not better at reciting moves from prepared lines. Then the score might be more even than anticipated.

Yes, Kasparov will still have an edge, based on accumulated knowledge - he learnt from Morphy's games, so he picked up all the skills that Morphy had displayed thus far. Morphy had no access to Kasparov games and style, that puts him at severe disadvantage in the early stage of the match.

However, take note that Morphy had only been playing competetively for a short time, and that he blitzed away most of his games at a time when players could take hours per move. Morphy's games therefore do not give a true representation of the depth of his skills. E.g. stockfish on a classical time control could be maybe 3000 rating. But give it just 5sec per move and it's nowhere near 3000. If Morphy is playing a player of Kasparov's standard, he would undoubtedly take far more time per move, and his level of play would undoubtedly be far higher than what is already known.

Kasparov is said to be peerless in complex positions while Morphy is said to be unsurpassed in open positions. I think Kasparov will dominate in a short match, but give Morphy a long match and it could be very close to call.

Kasparov is better than Morphy used to be in all phases of the game.

In a 30 game match Kaparov would win something like 27 to 3.

You're assuming that a player thinking for 5min per move couldn't play at a higher level if they invested more time for each move and for positional consideration in general. Morphy was playing moves in minutes while his opponents could take like 11hrs per move. Sure, sometimes Morphy took longer than a few minutes.. It was recorded he took 12mins to work out a Queen sac during a paulsen game and to the ppl accustomed to seeing Morphy play (ie Morphy's peers), that's an eternity for Morphy.

I think it's presumptuous to conclude that Morphy couldn't possibly play at a higher level if his opponents gave him reason to mull over a position longer. Chess is a game where the objective isn't to play the best move, you just need to play better than the opponent. If the opponent sees 2 move ahead, u'll be scoring very well if u see 4 move ahead.

I am assuming both players would have equal time for their moves. At any such time control Kasparov would destroy Morphy.

Morphy was the best for a short time period however chess knowledge has advanced enough that if Morphy were here today--he would be destroyed by Kasparov and many other players. 

You can only judge from Morphy games where his opponents weren't woodpushers (which is the norm for his saved games). But such games did exist- Grandmaster Valeri Beim made a remarkable attempt collecting and presenting them- I think this book is excellent for portraying the true potential of the player Paul Morphy- way more so than those "Opera games" etc, which are good only for teaching elementary things to beginners.

My point is simply: Stockfish playing at 5min per move, is not a true representative of stockfish's true playing strength. It's only representative of the strength that Stockfish can achieve at 5min per move.

Now if Morphy was taking as much time as his opponents, then I would agree with you his performance is representative of his real skills.

It's like playing a simultaneous exhibition. Surely his play would be better if he took more to dive deeper into the position.

Let me put it another way.

If Stockfish is a real person, Stockfish would take a look at me and says to himself 'hmm I can beat the crap out of this guy even if I give him knight and rook.' Would Stockfish feel the need to evaluate to a depth of 30 ply before playing a move? Surely not. Stockfish knows he can win from any position that is not -8. That allows Stockfish to cut down the search depth and play quickly. It doesn't mean Stockfish cannot play better. It just means Stockfish doesn't need to play better given the level of competition that it faced. I make the bold presumption that's what happened with Morphy. Especially since he challenged anyone and everyone to play him given pawn and move. I don't know if anyone had tried negotiating to a match on even terms if they did very well in the odds games. Maybe batgirl could shed some light on that. However it's clear to him (and everyone else) his competitors are very far below him in playing standard.

I thought Morphy played several matches at even odds?

He did play a lot of games at even odds.
He won most of them so easily he didn't feel it appropriate for him to play anymore games at even odds. I don't believe he was playing anywhere near his full strength at the speed with which he played his moves and he likely knew it too.

Put it this way, he went to Europe, beat all the leading players there (bar one, but not Morphy's fault that the match didnt happen), and went back to America basically undefeated. So he's a world champion in his own right.

How do you get to challenge the world champion in this day and age? I dont know if this still applies, but I think you have to compete amongst the other players, win sufficiently and then get into candidates tournament, the winner of which gets his chance to play the world champion. Which means the world champion only accepts one challenger.
Morphy short circuits that. He gives everyone the opportunity to play him (well... they still need to make the trip to America). The caveat is 'everyone' is not his match, it doesn't make sense to play even odds against just any challenger.

A case in point: I once heard a story of Capablanca reading his newspapers in a cafe when someone approached him for a game of chess. Capablanca smiled, took out his set, set the pieces up, and then took a look at his opponent and promptly pocket his own queen. His opponent was not pleased, saying something along the lines of ' hey! put that back! you don't know me, I can beat you!' Well, Capablanca looked at him again and told him something along the lines of, "Sir, yes, I don't know you. If you can beat me, I would have known you!"