Dear Roger and my fellow addicts,
> TO: Jonathan Marder
> FROM: Roger Parker
> If you don't mind Jonathan, I thought I would brainstorm a bit on your
topic
> of randomness. The ideas here are written lightly in # 2 pencil, and
> certainly subject to change. It is a great angle though that could use
> additional exploration.
Roger, I am delighted. Brainstorming is one of the best ways to use this
forum. I should remind you that I have a short article on the
causation/randomness subject on the MOQ web site (and also at
www.agri.huji.ac.il/~marder ).
I am slightly disappointed at the lack of response I got.
> JONATHAN:
> What I mean is that any definition of randomness is as elusive as the
> definition of quality. Actually they are pretty much opposites
> (quality=pattern, randomness=lack of pattern).. . .
> ROGER:
> 1) Randomness and pattern....... It seems that the terms are codefining
> opposites in the same way that hi defines low, hot defines cold etc. In
all
> these cases, they are actually more similar than unsimilar. For example,
if
> the class is 'height' the value is hi/low, if the class is 'temperature'
the
> value is....., if the class is 'order' the value is.......
It's more than that. To say that something is well and truly random, one
would have to test it against any and every possible pattern - and there are
an infinity of those. Thus, we cannot in practice definitively and
rigorously
identify anything as truly random. All we can say is that it APPEARS
random - i.e. we didn't find a pattern till now. Declaring something random
is sometimes shear laziness or lack of interest. For example, I may dismiss
some artist's work as *random* squiggles, while someone else may be able to
find tremendous meaning.
> ROGER
> 2) When we think about random, we normally think of something
> like.....73285491066398432876438982.....etc
>
Almost invariable we can find a mathematical function (a pattern) for any
given finite string. That's true even if the string was produced out of
"random" number tables, some other "random" number generator, or even a
throw of dice.
> But wouldn't this be a better version of random?.......7, orange, Christy
> Canyon, triangle, sweet, hot, .0005080066, position left, light, pi, Mount
> Rushmore, envy......etc?
>
> And even the above is patterned in terms of rhythm (1 concept per coma)
Quite true. Once you look for them, I'm sure you can find endless other
patterns in the same list.
>
> 3) The MOQ values freedom. And if you think about it, which is the
highest
> degree of freedom, pattern or random? I suggest the answer is both.
A short while back, I commented on this:
<<<
Subject: Re: MD The Bride of Free Will Returns
From: Jonathan B. Marder (marder@agri.huji.ac.il)
Date: Tue Jan 25 2000 - 22:20:22 GMT
website ref: http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/0001/0133.html
[snip]
Sorry to keep harping back to thermodynamics, but I just now realized
that Pirsig's words are a direct statement of the Second Law which says
that systems tend towards maximum entropy i.e. towards the state which
offers the greatest number of degrees of FREEDOM.
Does this impress anyone else?
>>>>
Evidently nobody else was impressed, because there was no response.
Thermodynamics applies this statistical principle to molecular entities.
In the 1930s, Claude Shannon realized that the same statistical principle
could be
applied to abstract entities, thus a whole theory of
information/communication science developed.
I am extremely happy that the same ideas find expression in Pirsig's MoQ.
ROGER:
> Events
> can be patterned or random. The freedom to change, or the freedom to be
> patterned (one such pattern is to repeat or to stay the same over time).
>But
> to limit events to be one or the other is a restriction of freedom. That
is
> another reason why I think randomness and pattern (change & not change)
are
> so related.
Things can only be declared patterned or random by reference to external
parameters.
Neither characterestic is intrinsic in any objective sense.
>If DQ is the quality event, then random or patterned are
>derived from quality events. Both are sq.
>
That's hardly surprising. Anything that can be verbally indentified is SQ
more-or-less by definition.
> If this is true, then it changes the MOQ. DQ is less 'unpatterned
>freedom'
> or 'change' (at least the conventional use of the word) and more like your
> old favorite.....'potential,' or perhaps my old trusty term 'experience'.
> Well, regardless, I do think that random and patterned are
'interpretations
> of experience' , or 'interpretations of potential'.
>
> But I really could be wrong.
>
Roger, I am glad you see what I have been getting at the whole time. Let's
take this branstorming as far as we can:-).
Jonathan
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