From: Yale Landsberg (yale_landsberg@yalelands.com)
Date: Thu Sep 11 2003 - 15:47:41 BST
From: <abahn@comcast.net>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 5:33 AM
Subject: Re: MD Evolution of levels
> Hi Yale,
>
> I have read your paper. Or more honestly skimmed it. You seem to want
someone
> on the list to confirm your belief that there is a connection between
Pirsig and
> your paper (fractal philosophy). Why don't you just tell us about the
> connection instead of making us needlessly wait in suspense.
>
> merely suggesting,
> Andy
>
Hi Andy, the Fractal Philosophy paper at http://yalelands.com/frph.pdf is
meant to be read and commented upon by professional and amateur philosophers
willing to bet some time (expend their to to hopefully get some worthwhile
reward.)
And I am sugesting that there is a lot in it about some interest aspects of
hierarchies of levels and levels of hierarchies.
Rather than keep you in suspense about where it might be sympatico with MoQ,
permit me to reference comments by one of your memebers who actually took
the time to read and reflect upon it, instead of looking for the easy way
out....
Dear Yale,
It was yours, the article? Then my apologies for my harsh comment at the
beginning at the post about 'the author'. Uhm, let me put it more mildly
what I said: the old Greek philosophers used this dialogue-technique, in
which it was true that the writer assumed rather naieve and 'stupid'
commenters. The technique you used addresses the reader directly, which
has the advantage that it can create a more personal touch, but in many
cases I did't assume the stance you ascribed to your potential readers.
And true, the recurring suggestions about the assumed stance of the
reader kind of irritated me (which left the reader stupid and the author
smart!). Anyhow, your style of writing was original and playful. Thus,
the attempt had DQ, but the it didn't lead (in my humble opinion) to a
static quality-form it potentially could have.
;-)
All the best, Patrick.
And...
Dear YL,
The pdf-file was interesting, although the ego-blown style of the author
irritated me. It does have similarities with Pirsig seeing Lila. In the
café he notices she notices that he is watching her, and she notices
that he notices that she notices he is watching her, etc. ad infinitum.
Like standing between two mirrors, you have a reflection of a reflection
of a reflection. The fellow of this pdf-file applies a similar strategy.
Two things I found particularly interesting:
The first is that he uses a mathematical metaphor of the seemingly ease
of going away from a spot: Any direction is adequate, north, west, south
or inbetween. Finding a good alternative narrows you options
considerably, however. The place you want to go is either north or south
or another particular direction. What Pirsig says about the
hippie-movement is that the hippies were good at walking away from the
center of the western culture of the sixties- they didn't, however, know
where to turn to. That's why the movement virtually bleeded to death.
The second thing I found interesting was the notion of aming at turning
towards turning towards something. It has a relation with the concept
of free will. What does it mean to turn your attention to something (to
will something)? In order to do that, you have to change your thinking
from this to that (to the topic you want to focus on). And how do you
initiate this change? By accelareting from some zero-point, so that you
can accomplish an amount of changing your attention. But how do you
start to accelerate? By starting to accelerate you acceleration. This
leads to an obvious paradox. How is it ever possible to turn your
attention towards something? How is free will possible? (This is a
version of psychology's homunculi, by the way)
The notion of a fractal philosophy is quite big and interesting.
Relating such a big idea to the whole edifice of the MoQ seems to me
daunting. Nevertheless interesting. Maybe cartesian philosophy (SOM)
tries to zoom in on a fractal- hoping someday to see the ultimate
building blocks! Pirsig would say: Hey, you're just going in one
possible direction. There are others, not only by 'zooming in' but by
staying at one level and walk around there, or better: zoom in a bit but
going to the 'left' simultanously. (Fits into another metaphor of
Pirsig: His idea of a chaqautua meaning to deepen the riverpaths of our
behaviors, instead of creating new ones only to end up in one shallow
homogenous river.)
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