Hey all, Not being terribly interested in this month's topic it took me a while to gather some thoughts on it. Power??? What can the MoQ tell us about it if anything. For inspiration I began by looking to the pages of Webster's New College Dictionary. It offered fifteen separate definitions of "power". They are: POWER: 1. The ability or capacity to act or perform effectively. 2. A specific capacity, faculty, or aptitude. 3. Strength or force exerted or capable of being exerted. 4. The ability or official capacity to exercise control over others. 5. A person, group, or nation having great influence or control over others. 6. The might of a nation, political organization or similar group. 7. Effectiveness or forcefulness 8. A large number or amount. 9. The rate at which work is performed, mathematically expressed as the first derivative of work with respect to time and commonly measured in units such as the Watt and Horsepower. 10. The product of applied potential in difference and current in a direct-current circuit. 11. An Exponent. 12. The probability of rejecting the null hypothesis where it is false. 13. A measure of the magnification of an optical instrument, such as a telescope or microscope. 14. The sixth group of angles in the hierarchical order of nine. 15. An armed force. I figured the first logical step would be to try to put these into MoQ format by grouping them according to the levels. Some were easy. Definitions # 8 - 14 fit neatly into the Intellectual level (many of them being scientific measures of inorganic forces). Definitions # 4,5,6, and fit into the Sociological level. Definition # 15 at first seemed to be a part of the Sociological, but I later decided it belonged to the Biological due to the fact that "an armed force" is threatening mainly because it can destroy your Biology. As for the Inorganic, their powers are the very things that are measured in the Intellectual definitions 8-14 (the electrical force that Watts represent, the actual magnification an optical instrument performs, etc). However, all of these seem to group nicely under definitions # 2 and 3 - "A specific capacity, faculty or aptitude" all though these two seem to function well for all levels. So this left me with just one definition that applied to all levels yet seemed to fit into none. Definition # 1 - "The ability or capacity to act or perform effectively". I thought about this for a while. "... to act or perform effectively". That sounds very much like the Arete that the sophists were teaching - not virtue, but the Quality of thought and action, i.e. effectiveness. It didn't take me long to make a simple and appropriate MoQ substitution in this definition. I felt it should read, "the ability or capacity to act or perform in accordance with Quality." Then it occurred to me that anything in the ripple of DQ has this ability. This is why the past and future have no true power, because they aren't in the Quality moment. Any atom or molecule, any plant or animal, any society or person, any thought or idea - all of these obviously have this capacity as long as their in the "path" of DQ. DQ = Power. Most of the posts I've read so far on this topic seem to be restricted to Sociological Power and its consequences... not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that we should remember that Power effects all levels on all scales because DQ does, and when you get right down to it, they're practically synonymous. it's all Good, Rick MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org
