Hi Marco
Apologies for the delay, I needed some time to reflect upon your questions.
> Your example of the Italian mirror shows clearly that the diverse the
> language the diverse the society: turn the Lila Squad into Italian and it
> will become " Il gruppo Lila"; all the members will suddenly change (but
> me and Andrea....). Nevertheless, your essay will still exist, as it has
> been translated into Italian, without losing its intellectual value (hoping
> my translation is flawless...). In few words, Intellect needs one language,
> no matter which one. But society, the Giant, Culture can't replace the
> language without changing deeply its nature.
I definitely agree with the last "few words" part. And of course, given that
the Italian mirror does count, the intellectual patterns of the Lila Squad
would survive. It would, as you wrote, be a different social "incarnation"
than the current one but it would be just as fit to support the intellectual
patterns of the Squad.
> [One marginal problem is that it is -as even Magnus says- too "classic".
> Very rational, maybe too much. He -sort of- asks forgiveness for that and
> writes that he would like to see someone writing an essay from the Romantic
> viewpoint. I don't know, maybe Platt could describe evolution of the Static
> levels from the perspective of aesthetics.....? ]
Actually, I was kind'a hoping he would pick up on my request when I wrote it
but we don't get everything we hope for.
> Firstly, there is this sort of infinite circle of inorganic level created by
> an intellectual level and then evolving to a new universe, and IMO it misses
> the MOQ point of the overall direction to DQ.
Yes, quite right. The same circle came up the other week and I'm not very serious
about that particular alternative. It does indeed miss the MoQ point of the
direction towards DQ. These are the kinds of things I miss when I concentrate
too much on the static side of Quality. On the other hand, it enables us to
reason about computer programs in terms of the MoQ, it teaches us that we
should build such programs in a structure similar to the MoQ levels.
> Then, the social level is IMO put in a exaggeratedly broad sense. I agree
> that it is not easy to draw the borderlines between the levels, and that it
> is not clear at all why should the social level be restricted only to
> humans, but I don't see any advantage in saying that an atom is a
> society.... [If someone is interested, I'll end this message with my own
> suggestion].
As I said to Jonathan the other day, the levels are not about scale. That
means that we shouldn't base the border between the biological and social
levels on the size of the pattern. Bo has repeatedly asked me about this
and I think I'm closing in on an answer. An atom shouldn't be considered
to be social, not because it's small but because it's inorganic value that
keeps the nucleus and electrons together, not social value.
I'd still argue that it's social value that is responsible for multi-cellular
plants and animals though. As most societies, they probably started out as two
different kinds of single-cell-animals living in symbiosis because they had a
better chance of survival that way. It's not inorganic value that directly
keeps such animals together, it's social value that manipulates the biological
and inorganic patterns in order keep the animal together.
This also explains why there seems to be a fuzzy border between levels. The
perceived border begins where the higher level starts to influence events
and ends where the higher level is dominant. But in my view of the MoQ, it's
not a border, the higher level is another dimension starting to grow in
another direction. It's still influencing events but there's no risk of
mixing up the different types of values of the levels.
> Finally, about a possible Quantum Level "zero", I don't see the necessity to
> metaphysically separate quanta from matter, but I have really no arguments
> on it. My instinct (!) says Jonathan could be right on that.
I'll try to stop nagging about that for a while, I have no doubt someone else
will sooner or later discover the pros with it and hopefully make a better
case of it than I have.
...no, sorry, can't resist. Take a typical inorganic value - gravity, mass,
electromagnetism or whatever. Inorganic patterns obey these, they value them.
Then take a quantum pattern, (or whatever you wanna call it). The question is:
- Does the quantum pattern value the typical inorganic value?
If the answer is no, we're talking about a new level. Doesn't anybody agree
with this?
> Ok, up to now I've just said "No". Time to be positive and suggest
> something.... even according to the subject of the current thread.
>
> The inorganic level is all what there is. Yes, everything is necessarily
> also inorganic.. (while for example the opposite is not necessarily true: a
> stone is not biological or social or intellectual). Of course, it's no
> sense, as Pirsig says, to search for the meaning of a novel looking at the
> bits of the hard disk it's saved on, but it is equally obvious that if I
> delete all the bits I delete also the novel. Call this level matter/energy
> or space/time universe or as you want. The above levels "see" the inorganic
> patterns as
> data, that means: all that is available.
>
> The passage from inorganic patterns to biological patterns is very similar
> to the hw/sw relation. Like to say, if you want, above from now there is
> only software.
>
> The biological level -life- is the ability of influencing reality, creating
> information from data. I mean, the Sun -hope we agree it's inorganic-
> influences reality, of course, but not according to the information it takes
> from the available data. We recognize a biological pattern of value -a
> living entity- as set of information stored in inorganic patterns, able of
> self sustaining and self reproduction. The only way to transmit a biological
> information is inheritance, as there is total identity between the living
> entity and its set of information. In few words, in order to duplicate my
> biological information, I have to "create" another individual.
> So, is a Robot a biological entity? I don't deny we can create living
> entities (well, women do it since million years :-) ). But the Robot will be
> a living entity only if it will be able to provide resources for itself and
> reproduce itself. Not if it can't live when I turn the electricity off. It
> can even be electric,why not, but then he should be able to produce by
> itself the electricity it needs. I'd add that simply "to be able" of
> reproduction is not enough: it should be also "better" for it to reproduce
> itself than not. Hope it is not necessary to explain that we can't say what
> does it mean that "better". The Biological Robot, eventually, will know it
> **by itself**, like every amoeba knows.
My standpoint is that it would be wise not to confuse life with the biological
level. Pirsig described the biological level in SODV as "senses of touch, sight
hearing, smell and taste". These values are of course tightly connected to life
but life is so much more and we risk losing focus on what the biological level
is really about.
> The intellectual level is the ability to create and handle and share
> information about the individual and its role within the universe. The very
> first form of intellectual pattern is the question: "who am I". It triggers
> a lot of questions: the relation between me and my universe (thus
> philosophy); how should we mould our environment (thus science and
> technology); what can I do for my society and what my society can do for me
> (thus politics and economy); is it possible for my intellectual patterns to
> survive after my biological death (thus religion, arts, medicine....)
I agree that it's the intellectual level that makes self awareness possible,
but I wouldn't say it began with "who am I". That came much later.
> Well, it's all. If there is still someone reading (let me thank you) it
> seems to me I'm not contradicting the MOQ nor the common sense. Do I miss
> something? Let me know.
Still reading all right, not very fast though. I agree that you don't contradict
the MoQ. But on the other hand, it's not vary daring either. I think you should
take a new step forward and really say something that hasn't been said before.
That could be really interesting.
Magnus
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