I agree. A society of people and a colony of ants are both social. The fact
that the game is win win is the unifying factor, not that one's ants and
one's humans. The colony is an entity itself, a social giant if you will
with it's own mission independent of the missions of the ants. That's the
key to the levels. Like how you exist independently of your individual brain
cells. One brain cell might die but you still survive.
This is the beauty of the giant idea
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
[mailto:owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk]On Behalf Of Magnus Berg
Sent: January 9, 2002 10:32 AM
To: moq_discuss@moq.org
Subject: Re: MD Quality and information theory
Hi Platt
> Delighted to see you back in fray after a long absence.
Well, I became a twin father this past May so I've been able to keep myself
occupied with other matters. :)
> However, I cannot
> let some of your statements pass without challenging them. For example,
> you wrote:
>
> > No, it doesn't necessarily mean that cells are intelligent. If you read
my
> > answer to Marco yesterday, you'll see that the language and the society
> > evolves simultaneously. This is such a case where the organs of the body
> > have developed a language without showing intellect.
>
> This implies that bodily organs form a society. Perhaps they do in the
> broadest sense of the term, but not in Pirsig's sense because society as
> used in the MOQ primarily refers to human society. I believe in the past
> you have pointed out one or two exceptions where Pirsig uses the term in
> its broad sense, but I dare say that the majority of MOQites will agree
> with me that Pirsig's "social level" does NOT refer to two atoms, or a
> dozen molecules, or a thousand ants or a gaggle of geese, but rather a
> collection of human beings. The battle between society and intellect that
> Pirsig spends so much time on doesn't make sense if society is considered
> any situation where two or three entities of any kind, such as protons,
> come together as you seem to insist on when using the word.
Why not? I don't take away the social status of human societies, the battle
stays just the same either way.
Regarding Pirsig's use of the social term in the broader sense, which he
does in Lila, (end of ch. 11 if I remember correctly). He gave feedback
to Dan Glover's 'Lila's Child' and in it, he expressed a desire to remove
that use of the term in a possible future edition of Lila. I've been waiting
for Dan to publish a revised Lila's Child, containing Pirsig's comments plus
perhaps our answers to them, but I've been unable to reach him lately.
Anyway, I still think everyone who restrict societies to only human
societies
makes a bad mistake, Pirsig or not. I've said many times that the MoQ is
supposed
to be a metaphysics. As such, you must be able to explain not only our daily
life, but also the not so daily events plus all possible future events. If
society is restricted to only humans we are stuck with another MoM, the
Metaphysics of Mankind.
Ok, we might extend the society term to include alien intelligence the day
we
realize that they exist. This is IMO a highly probable future and a
metaphysics
shouldn't rule it out.
The next step on this road of more or less probable future events happens
when
we encounter an alien race consisting of mechanical intelligent robots. What
now?
Is it probable? Perhaps not.
Is it impossible? Hardly.
Should a metaphysics forbid it? My ass!
I bet more than half of you are smiling at the geek who wrote this by now,
but
it gives you a picture of how I think when I'm checking the validity of a
metaphysics. If you, (I don't mean you specifically, Platt) think that a
metaphysics shouldn't concern itself with these matters, or perhaps you
think it's impossible to construct such a system, then I'm not sure I'm
particulary interested in discussing it with you.
> Similarly, the following description of the levels seems askew:
>
> > Your 3+1 idea makes the lower 3 levels into an organization chart,
that's
> > not a metaphysics. The levels are not about scale! Each level is
orthogonal
> > to all other levels, i.e. extends in a 90 degree angle to all other.
>
> If this means that the lower levels are not included in the upper, I
> disagree. The "scale" of the intellectual level is three levels larger
> than inorganic since it includes the inorganic, biological and social
> levels. The only way I know to picture levels and the inclusion of levels
> simultaneously (and to indicate increasing size) is by using concentric
> circles, not 90 degree angles.
Don't worry, it does indeed mean that lower levels are included in higher.
Level one extends in one direction making one level patterns into lines.
Level two extends in 90 degrees to the first, so a level two pattern is
a plane.
Level three extends in 90 degrees to the first two, so a level three pattern
is a cube.
Level four extends in 90 degrees to the first three, (impossible in our
daily 3-dimensional space but a metaphysics is not restricted by that),
making a level four pattern into a so called super-cube.
The difference between the dimensional model and concentric circles might
be academical, but I think the dimensional approach captures the description
of a level better. A higher level is dependent on lower, yet it's a
completely different beast.
> I admire your quest to unite quantum mechanics with the MOQ, but didn't
> Pirsig already do a pretty good job of that with his SODV paper?
Not really, he doesn't directly mention quantum mechanics in connection
with the MoQ, only the observation/Quality event connection. I think the
MoQ has plenty of more things to say about QM.
> After
> all, both science and the MOQ come to the same conclusion . . . that
> consciousness and the external world, subject and object, are ultimately
> one and the same thing.
Sure, such general conclusions about reality are quite important to reach.
But they are quite useless if you want to make predictions about reality.
Predictions require a much more elaborated and specific system. The more
we are able to specify the MoQ, the better predictions are possible.
> Science calls this fundamental "thing" the Unknown or Unmanifested Primal
> Soup. Pirsig calls it Quality. Then he alone of all the philosophers since
> Plato split the Unknown in a new way that made a hundred percent more
> sense than the old S-O way. Geez, you gotta love a guy who with the
> stroke of pen can change the world! On that we can agree.
We agree on most things, I'm sure. But it wouldn't be very rewarding, fun
nor dynamic to discuss only the things we agree upon.
Magnus
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