Hi Horse,
HORSE:
>The compositional problem occurs when you try and express MoQ structure in (and on)
>SOM terms. Under a SOM I (Horse) am little more than a bunch of atoms because that
>is what Horse is resolved into. Similarly, my mind and my brain are the same thing, I
>have a body but no 'soul' (and I don't mean this in any religious sense), there is no
value
>attached to Horse because value is not measureable and thus irrelevant. In fact, for
>many of this persuasion even the idea of a Metaphysics is non-sensical as nothing can
>be seen to come before physics/matter in any way. So what you (and others) appear to
>be seeing as a copositional relationship (as far as I can tell) is the superimposition
of
>something which is incorrect under the MoQ.
I don't know if composition, like causality, is considered incorrect in the
MOQ. Pirsig doesn't say this directly in Ch. 12, he just gives the impression
(which is the wrong impression, but see below) that the levels are not composed
of one another by way of the computer/novel analogy. But I wouldn't be too
surprised if he agreed with you.
HORSE:
>The "composed of" to which you refer is (or seems to be) a mechanistic/reductionist
>approach - but if this is not so then please explain otherwise.
It is not so. As I already expressed in my last post to Dan, which preceded
your joining the thread and which apparently you didn't read, "composed of"
isn't limited to matter in common English usage.
Webster's gives an example of its usage that counters the restricted
meaning you attribute to it:
"A few useful things...compose their intellectual possessions" - I. Watts.
The American Heritage gives another:
"the many ethnic groups that compose our nation". Surely this doesn't mean
that the people in these ethnic groups, or the ethnic groups themselves,
are "little more than a bunch of atoms".
Surely this statement includes all the values that give meaning to
ethnicity and the implied resultant melting-pot which is the nation.
Your belief that my position is that "Horse is little more than a bunch of
atoms" and that "there is no value attached to Horse because value is not
measureable and thus irrelevant" is consistent with the oversimplifications
that pervade Pirsig's SOM. It's a caricature of what people really think.
If you disagree, Horse, I'd like to hear your side of it.
Once the SOM restrictions on "compose" are disposed of, we see that the
statement "individuals compose societies" is, like the quote in the dictionary,
eminently reasonable.
HORSE:
>That there is confusion between the Social and Intellectual levels is hardly
surprising
>considering how recent is the emergence of Intellectual value from Social value and
the
>momentum possessed by Social value.
Fine. This is not inconsistent with what I'm saying.
HORSE:
>Following on from the above, in MoQ terms what you would call composed of, I would
>refer to as created from. Rather than being the sum of my component atoms, my
>'component atoms' are created by Inorganic patterns of Value. The interaction and
>'combination' of these Inorganic patterns of value result in the emergence of
Biological
>patterns of Value.
This is completely compatible with the dictionary definition of "compose".
American Heritage: "To make or create by putting together parts or elements."
The dictionary doesn't demand that the "parts or elements" be atoms or matter,
or even preclude them from being patterns of value.
HORSE:
>That they are related in a hierarchical/evolutionary sense does not
>mean that one is composed of the other.
Huh? Why not? You just got through saying that your body, a biological pov, was
created by inorganic povs, which is your MOQ definition of "composed".
HORSE:
>Additionally there is DQ to consider.
This would be the interaction and combination of ipovs you speak of - the magic
chemistry. The dictionary definition of "compose" does not explicitly mention
any such interactions or combinations going on in the creation of the composed
"thing", but it does not preclude them either. This is why, as I said in my
post to Dan, we still speak of water as being composed of hydrogen and oxygen
even though water has totally new emergent properties. Compositions are *not*
just those things that result from *inert mixtures* of other things. Special
interactions of the constituent parts or elements, whether they are due to DQ
or not, are implicit in the definition of compose, and are not additional.
HORSE:
>How are we to know unless you spill the beans (or did you and I missed it)? So slap it
>down for all of us to see and criticise.
You kind of missed it. I think we should stop at the social level.
The next level is still nascent, but it might be the Internet or something
like a United Nations with a twist that I can't predict. I'm not averse to
refining the inorganic level into more levels. I realize that people here will
not be too enthralled with these suggestions.
HORSE:
>You should read more Popper then, as well as Lakatos, Kuhn etc. The inductivist (from
>induction) approach was seen as problematic many years back and superceded by
>falsification which was superceded by structures and paradigms etc. I'm sure
inductivism
>(or inductivists) are still fighting their case but I was under the impression that
things
>had moved on from an approach which allows a single counter-example to destroy an
>entire model!
I've read Popper and Kuhn. I don't know why you think paradigms displaced
falsification which displaced induction. The three developed within the
philosophy of science in the historical order you describe, but they have
little to do with one another. The notion of a falsifying counter-example does
not necessarily destroy a model, but it forces an amendment of some sort.
Falsification was Popper's attempt at a concept that could distinguish science
from pseudo-science. We should really discuss this in a different thread if
you'd like to pursue it.
GLENN: (previously)
>> - Pirsig seems to have chosen the levels as if they were axioms and then
>> noticed the opposition between them as an afterthought, and then wrongly
>> believed they affirmed his choices, in chapter 12.
HORSE:
>Maybe it is my interpretation of
>chapter 12 but I can't see why you have the opinion expressed above based on this
>chapter. Care to enlighten me, preferably with quotes (in context).
Sorry. You got me. I don't know where I got this from.
HORSE:
>In chapter 12 Pirsig uses an analogy of computer hierarchy to explain the levels and
>then expands on various reasons why value is not seen as a better system of
>explanation and why it has been passed over previously.
Let's look at his computer novel analogy more closely in terms of evolution
and composition. Computer registers are composed of flip-flops. A machine
language instruction is composed of registers. An assembly language is
composed of machine language instructions. COBOL is composed of assembly
language. Word processors are composed of COBOL. You have to go through many
layers of composition to get this far, and still you haven't gotten to the
novel. And now it isn't even correct to say that the novel is composed of word
processors. In fact at this point you should realize that the novel didn't
evolve from the computer at all, but from the novelist, a whole different
evolutionary entity. This, by the way, muddies the analogy with the levels,
which evolve in a single strand. The computer and novel happen to meet, but
they started at different places and evolved along different paths. A better
analogy is between the flip-flop and the word-processing program.
The computer/novel analogy succeeds in showing that the flip-flop and the novel
are nearly independent things, much like the levels are supposed to be. He is
also correct that the novel resides in but is not composed of flip-flops, and
we see this is correct for two reasons: 1) computer registers are composed of
flip-flops, and registers are not novels, and 2) novels evolve from novelists,
not computers.
Where this analogy misleads, perhaps inadvertently, is when it stresses
that nearly independent things, like novels and flip-flops, do *not*
possess a compositional relationship. It's misleading because we've already
seen, with the example of water, that nearly independent things *do* exist
in a compositional relationship. One application of composition (one with
interesting interactions) seems to be the minimum requirement for
near-independence in an evolutionary model. Naturally the flip-flop and
word-processor program are extremely different "beasts" because composition
has occurred many times over between the two, but the analogy argues,
compellingly, that each compositional jump is akin to a quantum leap across
domains.
Getting back to my points about the level hierarchy... 1) It is reasonable
to say that the relationship between the inorganic level and the biological
level, and the biological level and the social level, is compositional...
2) that this compositional relationship is what makes the patterns between
each nearly independent and thus good choices for levels...
3) that social and intellectual patterns do not have this compositional
relationship, and neither do flip-flops and word-processors
(directly), the key difference being that social patterns and intellectual
patterns are not separated even once by composition, while flip-flops and
word-processors are separated by several applications of composition.
Glenn
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