Re: MD Cybernetics and sq evolution - Secondary ontology as harmony.

From: mark maxwell (laughingpines@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Fri Oct 21 2005 - 16:29:28 BST

  • Next message: Scott Roberts: "Re: MD Cybernetics and sq evolution - Secondary ontology as harmony."

    Mark,

    Mark 19-10-05:
    Also, step 2 of the loop, 'Open up to DQ' may be the
    area of secondary ontological events or intuition.

    Scott:
    Why not say "is DQ" rather than "Open up to DQ"? Why
    isn't intuition DQ? It is undefinable and leaves new
    SQ in its wake, no?

    Mark 21-10-05:
    Hello Scott, Fair question.
    I reckon you are correct to identify intuition with
    DQ.
    The 2sqOE comes close to the cutting edge of intuition
    also, maybe it is almost direct unmediated experience,
    but not quite? I must be more careful to underline
    this differentiation. Thanks Scott.

    Scott said:
    But I would go further and say that it is not confined
    to any particular static repertoire, that it also
    creates repertoires, that it is capable of jumping out
    of all repertoires.

    Mark 19-10-05:
    This is interesting.

    Scott said:
    But I agree with Ian that intellect is more than
    cybernetics.

    [Side note to Ian: you're right, I misread what you
    said. Apologies]

    Mark 19-10-05:
    Even cybernetic loops are part of the static
    repertoire. I'm suggesting that we simply recognise
    that the steersman in this process aims for DQ.

    Scott:
    OK, you are including cybernetic loops into the
    static. Which is why I noted that intellect is not
    limited to cybernetic loops.

    Mark 21-10-05:
    I agree the Intellect as a Dynamic process is not
    limited to the static. Social, biological and
    inorganic evolution is not limited to the static when
    they are recognised as processes. I don't think this
    means we can jump straight to the suggestion that
    everything is Intellect.

    Scott said:
    Cybernetics assumes a more or less well-defined goal
    or set of criteria by which the governing (steering)
    can be evaluated.

    Mark 19-10-05:
    I agree with you. Yes indeed, in its scientific sense
    certainly. But I'm a metaphysician, or like to think i
    am when I've had a few beers, and for one such as me,
    cybernetics has a metaphysical, value centred
    description provided by the MOQ. In this very
    generalised sense (and metaphysics deals with the most
    basic categories, right?) cybernetics aims at DQ.
    Evaluation of a Dynamic shift becomes pragmatic in a
    value centred sense.

    Scott:
    And this is a point of the MOQ that I think needs
    correction, namely "aiming" or "evolving toward DQ".
    It is based on centric mysticism, and as such needs to
    be corrected by the differential mysticism of
    Nagarjuna and others.

    Mark 21-10-05:
    I'm studying Nagarjuna right now as part of an Indian
    analytical philosophy course within my MA. I will have
    to get back to you on this point.
    However, from what i think i already understand,
    Nagarjuna, and i regard him to be of the finest
    intellectual quality, did not have a conception of
    evolution to contend with. Please bare this in mind
    Scott? As Pirsig says, the karmic wheel doesn't just
    revolve, it is attached to a cart and that cart is
    going somewhere.

    Scott said:
    But as one gets further out on the "less" one gets to
    cases where there is no goal, or where the goal is too
    vague to be a guide, for example "explaining the
    universe", or "increasing Quality". In these cases,
    intellect is about changing goals or creating new
    ones, about creating criteria, rather than following
    them.

    Mark 19-10-05:
    That's an interesting statement, because one can
    insert the MOQ itself at this point as a new
    intellectual criteria or goal rather than following a
    scientifically, truth based paradigm.

    Scott:
    Or one insert something other than the MOQ, namely a
    MOQ that has been corrected to understand that ALL
    goals, including "aiming for DQ" are capable of being
    deconstructed. In doing so, intellect frees itself
    from another limit. It is no longer cybernetic, or
    rather, can choose to be cybernetic or not.

    Mark 21-10-05:
    Fair point. However, i take issue with your notion of
    deconstructing that which is conceptually free. I do
    not think that is at all possible.

    Scott said:
    Yes. Being open and mentioning feedback are in line
    with my saying that intellect creates and reflects on
    SQ, in addition to just manipulating it.

    Mark 19-10-05:
    It seems to doesn't it? But there is a view which
    moves away from this by placing a secondary
    ontological layer between sq and DQ.
    (By layer, i do not mean level. A layer of secondary
    ontological events lies on a continuum between chaos
    and stagnation, with 'It' in between)
    The secondary ontological layer, or excellence as i
    see it, is also static and in no way attempts to
    encapsulate or conceptualise DQ.
    So, DQ creates and reflects on a continuum of sq
    ontological events which oscillate in a cybernetic
    sense around 'It' or itself.
    The cybernetic process is Intellect at work - the
    static repertoire is what the cybernetic process
    creates and works with. Sadly, the static description
    of cybernetic process would become part of a newer
    static repertoire that happens to include it along
    with everything else.

    Scott:
    It looks to me like this secondary ontological layer
    is just required to avoid saying that intellect is DQ.
    The beginning of epicycles, so to speak.
    Intellect is creative. DQ is creative. What's the big
    deal? Just say intellect is DQ and be done with it.
    But no, apparently we must instead learn to see the
    creativity of intellect as a "mere seeming" of
    creativity.
    An appearance/reality distinction manufactured to
    preserve dogma.

    Mark 21-10-05:
    Jesus wept, that's a vitriolic statement isn't it?
    Who put the bee in your helmet?
    Are you telling me that the suggestion that no one can
    tell you what DQ is is actually a dogma? I would have
    rather thought that DQ explodes dogma?
    sq produces dogma, not DQ, surely?
    Christians and Bodvar Skutvik expound dogma Scott; it
    is the likes of they, who tell you what is to be
    understood and ejaculate* when you refuse to
    understand who expound dogma.
    Does Nagarjuna expound dogma when he suggests there
    are no essences; emptiness of svabhava? The MOQ
    replaces emptiness with that which pulls evolution
    towards itself, thus combining nagarjunian, mahayana
    Buddhist views with evolution.
    2sqEO is near the cutting edge and is an empirical
    experience of creativity at work - creatively diving
    into the unknown - the un-static, to further quality.

    Scott said:
    A computer (properly programmed) is an example of a
    cybernetic process that manipulates without reflection
    or creativity.

    Mark 19-10-05:
    A computer does not have a biological or social
    aspect, yet? In a sense, a computer which has a
    biological and social aspect is called a Human being.

    Scott:
    The comparison fails once one includes freedom. A
    human being is free (more or less). A computer is
    determined.

    Mark 21-10-05:
    For now. Quantum processors may change all that one
    day.

    Scott said:
    I agree, but I would say this is why all levels should
    be thought of as intellectual, that they all involve
    semiosis (the static repertoire *means* something, and
    provides feedback, is valued information, resulting in
    new latches).

    Mark 19-10-05:
    Now look here, drop the term 'information,' change
    valued to 'value' and you have just said: "the static
    repertoire *means* something, and provides feedback,
    is value, resulting in new latches"
    This does away with your contention that all levels
    are intellect and replaces it with value; all levels
    are value which is precisely what the MOQ says.
    Intellect is simply a very sophisticated matrix of
    preferences or values.

    Scott:
    Why should I drop the word 'information'? Just to be
    faithful to the MOQ?
    Using that word is what I am arguing for. Where there
    is value there is intellect. Where there is preference
    there is choice, and handling choices is intellect
    (drawing out consequences, comparing them, choosing).
    In the absence of comparing and choosing there is no
    preference, and no value. Just automaticity.

    Mark 21-10-05:
    The choices intellect makes are aesthetic ones. This
    is the view of Poincare as told in ZMM. Hardly any
    physicist (physicists are bleedin' prime examples of
    those who may be regarded as 'intellectuals i assume)
    will argue with that. Some replace that aesthetic with
    God, the MOQ says DQ. DQ is central to creative
    thought.
    And after going all around the houses, look where we
    are: Cybernetics and sq evolution - Secondary ontology
    as harmony. Note: Harmony, Poincare? creativity? The
    roll of sq in all that? An MOQ framework?
    Why can't you help me go forward instead of dragging
    me backwards month in month out?

    Scott said:
    This does require, though, that we find a way to
    distinguish human intellect from non-human, though
    perhaps that is all we need: human/non-human.

    Mark 19-10-05:
    I feel sure this distinction would be, to some extent,
    blurred by their interaction? Humans would interact
    with other intelligences in ways which would change
    both.

    Scott:
    Who says they aren't interacting? In this materialist
    age we have lost touch with the intellect in nature,
    but it is there, and I hope we are evolving to be
    reacquainted (to final participation, to use
    Barfield's phrase).

    Mark 21-10-05:
    I didn't deny they are did i?

    Scott said:
    This does not imply that a rock is or has intellect.

    Mark 19-10-05:
    This does not comply with your earlier suggestion
    that: "intellect is DQ". DQ evolved Inorganic and
    Biological events before the Intellectual level
    evolved at all. Therefore, rocks would have primitive
    intellects.

    Scott:
    Intellect localized in human individuals (making them
    individuals in a sense) fairly recently. But the idea
    that intellect did not exist at all until then is a
    remnant of materialist thinking, which for some reason

    the MOQ keeps around.

    Mark 21-10-05:
    Good God, you know how to stretch a persons patience.
    It's so simple a chimp could get it.
    Intellect is 'made' of the same 'stuff' as rocks, but
    intellect is configured at a level of sophistication
    far beyond that of rocks.
    A bit like comparing a folded paper plane with
    Supersonic Concord.

    Scott:
    Another point on which it needs correcting.

    Mark 21-10-05:
    Get a grip on yourself.*

    Scott:
    (And I would not say that rocks have primitive
    intellects. Rocks are bits of the manifestation of SQ,
    the expression of intellect.)

    Mark 21-10-05:
    This sounds like idealism to me. I'm not happy with
    that.

    Mark said:
    Actually, it think you're conflating consciousness
    with intellect, because values or patterns of
    preferences are awareness or consciousness of the
    environment.

    Scott:
    Actually, I'm conflating consciousness, intellect and
    value. They are all three concepts which we need to
    talk about the one (non-)thing. No one of them can do
    the job on its own, but each of them implies the other
    two.

    Mark 21-10-05:
    You're forgetting that i don't live in 'Scottland'
    where the mighty thistle of barbed confusion loftily
    chafes of a careless man's wobbly portions.
    No, i dwell among the evergreen pastures and shady
    groves of dappled thought, where all is but a dancing
    kaleidoscope of evolving values.

    Scott said:
    It does suggest that rocks are analogous to letters or
    words that make up statements.

    Mark 19-10-05:
    This analogy is messy and unhelpful. It may all shewn
    away if we simply replace values as the primitive
    ontological events of experience.
    Rocks are then not analogs, but actual value patterns
    of a very low order compared to intellectual value
    patterns which are of a very high order.
    I would recommend another dip into Lila.

    Scott:
    Why is that you and DMB assume that if one fully
    understands the MOQ there can be no disagreeing with
    it?

    Mark 21-10-05:
    Before you begin to disagree you have to understand
    what you are in disagreement with. I don't think you
    understand how simple the MOQ is; how, with a slight
    twist of perception many things become more clear.
    My problem is rather different: I need people who
    understand the MOQ to appraise what I'm saying and
    then tell me if it's best dropped or pursued?

    Scott:
    I agree that rocks are actual value patterns. I am
    pointing that that makes them part of (non-human)
    intellectual patterns as well.

    - Scott

    Mark 21-10-05:
    OK. But that sounds like idealism to me.

    * (Ooooo - eeeerrrrrrrrrr!)

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