From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Wed Sep 10 2003 - 12:39:52 BST
Hi Paul,
This is a brief initial response to a very clear and interesting post. To my mind the answer lies in
the image of the computer interface which Pirsig uses (the 'machine language interface'). I think
there he talks about the "new" pattern going off on purposes of its own.
"Although both the circuit designer and the programmer knew the meaning of the instruction, "Load
Accumulator," the meaning that each knew was entirely different from the other's. Their only
relationship was that of analogy. A register is analogous to a bank of flip-flops. A change in
voltage level is analogous to a change in number. But they are not the same. Even in this narrow
isthmus between these two sets of static patterns called "hardware" and "software" there was still
no direct interchange of meaning. The same machine language instruction was a completely different
entity within two different sets of patterns."
"Similarly the biological patterns of life and the molecular patterns of organic chemistry have a
"machine language" interface called DNA but that does not mean that the carbon or hydrogen or oxygen
atoms possess or guide life. A primary occupation of every level of evolution seems to be offering
freedom to lower levels of evolution. But as the higher level gets more sophisticated it goes off on
purposes of its own."
But I'll continue thinking about this.
Cheers
Sam
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Turner" <paulj.turner@ntlworld.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 12:03 PM
Subject: MD Evolution of levels
> All
>
> I'm trying to pin down some widely held assumptions about the MOQ that
> I'm not clear on, starting with this one.
>
> Bo said:
> "According to the MOQ all levels start(ed) as a pattern of the parent
> level."
>
> Is this what Pirsig said? Does he really mean that a pattern of values
> in one level "moves up" to a new level?
>
> The reason I ask is that:
>
> a) I don't see the necessity to make that assertion - why couldn't a new
> level be said to be created by the first pattern that fits the
> definition of that level?
>
> b) it can't be based on observation
>
> c) It doesn't fit with the statement that levels are not continuous
>
> d) a pattern of values is a pattern, not a thing, so it's not that a
> thing starts doing something else so much as a new pattern creates a
> different thing. That is, when a pattern changes, it is no longer the
> old pattern in any sense
>
> Bo, I'm not trying to prove you wrong, like I said, it's a widely held
> assumption so it must come from somewhere. Is there a statement anyone
> can quote which explicitly says that a pattern of values moves up a
> level? The quote Bo gave just says that each level's purpose is to
> preserve the level below, not that it was part of the level below. Is it
> just inferred from such quotes?
>
> Bo cited:
> "Therefore, to the question, "What is the purpose of all this
> intellectual knowledge?" the Metaphysics of Quality answers, "The
> fundamental purpose of knowledge is to Dynamically improve and preserve
> society. "Knowledge has grown away from this historic purpose and become
> an end in itself just as society has grown away from its original
> purpose of preserving physical human beings and become an end in itself,
> and this growing away from original purposes toward greater Quality is a
> moral growth."
>
> Cheers
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
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