Hello everyone
Marco wrote:
Hi Dan, and all MD
I have changed the subject line, according to the question, that is:
*** Is it possible to scientifically detect a social pattern? ***
Pirsig, reported by Dan:
> > The social
> > level is the sum total of all cultural influences on the individual
> > which no scientific instrument can detect.
Dan explained:
> > A great example of a social pattern of
> > value that Mr. Pirsig gives in the new annotated version of Lila's Child
> > is the President of the United States. We all know who and what he is
but
> > no scientific instrument can detect the President of the United States.
Marco objected:
>... let me offer another example. English Language. I
>think we all agree it is a social pattern. Well, my computer can detect
>English Language, suggests corrections to wrong terms, and tell my English
>posts from my Italian posts.
Dan answered:
I think the solution is in Lila where RMP talks about the novel being in the
computer but no one can find it with a voltage meter. On the computer's
level, language is purely information. In order to use language (read the
novel) we have to interpret the information within our social context. Your
computer can tell English from Italian (if it has been instructed to do so)
but it cannot interpret what is being said. What do you think?
Marco:
Here is more or less what I had in my mind while writing my previous
objection.
a) I was referring to English language, not to the meaning of what you are
writing and I'm reading. A meaning can be supported by various languages,
and the relation between language and meaning is like the relation between
the computer and the novel: they are on different levels.
Dan:
Hi Marco
I hope you've had time to go over RMP's annotations from Lila's Child. Here
are a few comments...
I think you're right, there are several levels to language and a computer
cannot
laugh at a joke or cry at a sad story. I think also there is an inherent
problem in
examining language with language.
Marco:
b) Language, intended as a set of rules we agree upon in order to exchange
information, is not a biological pattern of value (we can learn all the
languages we want, and indeed you can't say I can speak Italian looking at
my DNA); it's hard to say it's inorganic as it evolves according to
different social contexts, and as it can be supported by different inorganic
patterns of value (sound, ink, electrons....). So, it should be social,
don't you think? As well as the market, the law, rituals.... these are all
shared rules.
Dan:
I think there is evidence that language is "hard-wired" in the brain though
when I say language I don't mean specific languages 'per se' like Italian
and
English, rather I mean the ability to communicate. I would say language
evolves
from repetitive biological patterns.
Marco:
c) Apparently, my computer detects language. At least, some of the said
rules. I open my word processor, follow Tools/Language. There is a check
box "detect language automatically". This way the word processor can tell
the language of the text. Not its meaning (well, for the moment...): in
facts, it says that a nonsensical sentence like "I what between tool
different all you town tree" is English (... and, well, it IS English,
despite the nonsense). And, to the matching nonsensical sentence "Io che fra
strumenti diversi tutti voi citta albero", the software responds: Italian.
Dan:
The software your computer is running has been written by a human being and
the
language it is responding to is not the same language you and I respond to,
be it
Italian or English.
Marco:
d) Indeed the computer follows instructions, and actually my word processor
can't detect... the dialect of my home town, but this is true for any
scientific instrument: (my balance can't detect how many kilograms the
Kilimanjaro is heavy, but says my little daughter is 3290 grams, +/- 10
grams); they have a range of application, and they can be perfected.
e) What does it mean to detect? Literally, to discover, from Latin de-tegere
(tegere=to cover). To "scientifically detect", I guess, means more or less
"to respond to reality according to recognizable objective accurate
patterns". You write that on the computer level, language is purely
information. Agree. But all patterns at every level can be seen as purely
information:
"We see that [the chemistry professor] is conducting his experiments for
exactly the same purpose as the subatomic forces had when they first begun
to create him billions of years ago. He is looking for information that will
expand the static patterns of evolution itself and give both greater
versatility and greater stability against hostile static forces of nature"
Patterns are layered information. In the end, detecting is discovering and
translating the hidden information.
f) One could say that actually the computer detects just electrons. Indeed.
But it would be like to say that the police radar can't detect I'm driving
too fast as it is actually detecting an inorganic pattern - radio waves. I
guess that this argument would not avoid me the just fine, objectively based
upon a scientifically detected traffic offence. Or it would be like to say
that I can't detect what you are meaning as my senses just detect sound.....
The fact is that we, as well as any instrument, detect/sense only inorganic
patterns that are supporting biological, social and even intellectual
information. If we want to stick to the point that actually the computer
detects only inorganic patterns -electrons-, well the consequence is that
even biological patterns can't be detected. And that we fall in the well
known dualism: matter (what is detected) / mind (our interpretation).
Dan:
As I understand it, the MOQ does not support a dualistic approach but rather
expands the
viewpoint that materialism and idealism are mutually exclusive schools of
thought. They
do not contradict each other they complement one another.
Since scientific instruments are extensions of the senses, it would seem
safe to say
inorganic and biological patterns can be seen and heard. Social and
intellectual
patterns cannot.
Marco:
g) Now that I'm thinking of it, I'm realizing that in the end the very new
thing, about modern technology, resides in a simple instruction: IF.
Classically, instruments had no IF's, so only a human being was able to
respond to data with actions and/or statements. Computers can execute IF /
Then instructions. "If speed > 50mph then take a snapshot of the car"; "If
the word is in the English Dictionary, then it's English". Thanks to IF/Then
statements, we can instruct a software how detecting social patterns. Today
it seems normal, only 50 years ago it was purely science fiction. In 50
years from now?
Dan:
Modern technology so far as I know is built on classical knowledge. I am
unsure of
your point here. Could you explain further?
Marco:
In the end, the problem is IMO to understand if Pirsig is meaning that *the
nature* of a social pattern is that it can't be scientifically detected, and
this point will be true forever; or that it is simply the current situation.
In this latter case, the definition would be of very low value: we'd have a
borderline between biology and society that changes as technology evolves.
In the first case, OTOH, it would presume that science can't even *see* the
social realm. I think this is the extreme consequence of the famous 2+2
idea: inorganic+biologic is the objective realm, social+intellectual the
subjective. While I agree that objective science is largely defective to
controlling the social level, IMO to baldly state that it can't even
*detect* social patterns... well it seems a bit exaggerate.
Dan:
Science knows about the social realm. It's called anthropology. But as you
said,
there is no scientific instrument to detect whether I speak English by
looking at
my DNA, thus the point Phaedrus makes about anthropology in LILA.
Thank you for your comments
Dan
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