MAGNUS, and all
> Hi Marco
>
> Apologies for the delay, I needed some time to reflect upon
> your questions.
Apologies? No, thank you for the delay, I also need it. I've changed the
subject of the thread, hope you don't mind.
=========
Overall direction to DQ
MARCO (previous)
> > 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.
MAGNUS
> 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.
MARCO
Interesting that you get inspiration from Lila for that. I don't see great
difference between the job of computer programming and other jobs and I
think that the care for or our work is more ZAMM's then LILA's message... of
course everyone has to find his/her own path toward the quality of his/her
own work...
====================
dividing patterns in levels
> 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.
MARCO:
You say that there's no risk, nevertheless it's not easy to convince
everyone that the patterns are clearly separated. I've been in agreement
with the "dimension picture" for some times, but now I'm back on the
original SODAV picture of the 4 discrete blocks.
About the borderlines, I don't repeat what I've written in the other message
I've sent today. The point is that I suggest a method. This implies the very
important consequence that the division in levels we sketch is primarily an
intellectual pattern of value. But it implies also that if we engage
ourselves in such job, it is because we are trying to sketch a detailed map
of reality and that our map is more good the more it matches reality.
I think I have few doubts now, especially on the inorganic/biologic and the
biologic/social borderlines. So I'm going to analyze our exchange according
to the MOQ levels...
====================
Inorganic level
MAGNUS:
> ... 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?
MARCO:
A premise. Obey is not a good term, as it supposes a law we have to obey. I
don't think that inorganic patterns "obey" gravity. Inorganic patterns have
their behavior and we describe that behavior according to laws. We could
even say that it is gravity law that obeys pattern behavior: if tomorrow we
will observe an apple jumping from the ground up to the tree we will have to
rewrite a more inclusive law. It is my impression that if we can't describe
a common law for the behavior of stones and photons it is because our law is
not OK....
Anyway, even using the "obey" term for practical reasons... I'm not an
expert, but I know that one of the greatest attempt of the current physics
is to unify the theories of the classically four fundamental interactions
into one. And that today they have already described and tested one only law
that unifies electromagnetic interaction with the subatomic "weak"
interaction... Isn't it like to say that both subatomic particles and
magnets "obey" the same law? So, when they will unify all the
interactions, will your "Quantum patterns" be included or not? Let me know.
===================
Biological level
MAGNUS:
> 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.
MARCO:
Right. the main problem is that it is not very clear what life is, in the
end. But unless you consider inorganic patterns "alive", I think we will
agree that life pops out at the bio level. Then I'd add that life goes on up
along the other levels, as support. Just like matter -for example- pops out
as inorganic
and then goes on up as support for the other levels....
"Life" term aside, Pirsig's description of the bio level you mention fits
with my point: "senses of touch, sight hearing, smell and taste" are all
biologically inherited skills. Platt recently reminded us that Pirsig
talks also of emotions as "biological response to value". And again I agree
as we don't have to learn how to feel emotions.... quite the contrary, great
part of the social level is about how repressing and channeling emotions.
=============
Social level
MARCO (previous)
> > Then, the social level is IMO put in a exaggeratedly broad sense.
> > 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 of
> > saying that an atom is a society....
MAGNUS
> 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.
MARCO
My point was not about scale. We have already discussed the scale thing
once on MF, and I agree with you on that. Anyway the last line of your above
paragraph closes definitively the "social atom" argument.
MAGNUS:
> 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.
MARCO:
According to the borderlines I suggest, I'd say that if symbiosis is
biologically inherited, it is biological. A cell of a multi-cellular
plant -say: a pine- can't learn how to live a different life and become a
cell of an oak. To do that, it would have to bear another cell, with a
"duplication mistake".
I really don't know if bees have diverse -although simple- "cultures"
according to diverse hives. If it was the case, I'd say that bees have a
social interaction... even if of course they get biologically the great
part of their behavior.
=================
Intellectual level
MAGNUS:
> 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.
Could be, actually I have to better refine this point. But can you tell me
where does intellect start from? I've already explained my idea in my
"Things and levels" message to MD (25 July 2001)
( http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/0107/0199.html to read it
all.)
Pirsig clearly says in chapter 30 that "rituals may be the connecting link
between the social and the intellectual levels of evolution". And I think
that rituals bring division of labor; and division of labor brings
isolation; and finally isolation brings self awareness. This is IMHO the
process.
MAGNUS:
> .... 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.
MARCO:
Right. But maybe I'm not that creative! On the other hand I've not seen much
people here holding that the self is the basic intellectual pattern. At the
contrary, I've seen more than one suggesting that the self is an illusion,
despite the fact they would become rightly furious for an "ad hominem"
attack.
thanks for your attention
Ciao,
Marco
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