Hi Krimel As usual I think we are quite close but I think some extra bits need adding to your view, bits that I consider as enriching. Like you I want to make sense of experience-life and think the story of this cosmos suggested by science has to be seriously brought into this understanding. Like you I think this can fit with the MOQ but, perhaps more than you, I think MOQ can enhance our grasp of this scientific picture.
What is DQ? What is Nothingness? In the beginning there was nothing. But here we are living with lots of stuff and activity. We can call all of this patterns. But why these patterns? In the beginning was nothing. So in the beginning what was possible? Was anything/everything possible? Is nothing therefore full of potential? An infinity of potential? Such is DQ? DQ is the openness of what is (which may be nothing) to change and potential. If our actual cosmos was entirely random would not everything happen all at once and then be over? Can something complex like a human being just suddenly be created and then disappear again? How is the actual different from the potential? Does the potential contain all possibilities? Is the actual finite? Perhaps we should see the finite-actual as a journey through the possible-potential? In the beginning was nothing. Now let's take a walk out and into the possible. The first step out of the nothing begins with something simple. But this step has to set out in one direction and foresakes many other possible directions. The actual is a foresaking of the possible for just one choice. Physicists have the same picture and use the many worlds concept. We live in a cosmos where all the right steps have been taken to enable MOQ discussing humans to exist in cyber space. That is actuality that has been chosen, foresaking all other possibilities. And on the process goes, as further choices take place and new possibilities are actualised or left unmanifest. But how did we get here, to this actualised possibility rather than others? This is the question the MOQ confronts,although a bit obliquely. How are patterns selected/chosen? MOQ dismisses any suggestion that there are laws that determine the patterns that exist. Patterns are just left in the wake of the creativity of DQ. Science only ever comes afterwards and identifies the patterns that have emerged in this cosmos it could not determine them prior to their emergence. Evolutionary theory says nothing about how patterns emerge, it only enables us to understand which patterns survive and prosper in the context of the given environment we have (although that is dynamically changing so it is hard to see who is today's likely winners). So which patterns? We have a number of possibilities? Randomness: there is no choice, from the possible patterns just one is selected at random. And maybe on separate occasions a new/different random choice is made. Mechanism-law: there are no possibilities/choices/openness, so everything is as it must be. Choice -maybe in line with our human experience all existence requires choice. There are options/possibilities and we have to choose. And maybe all activity (organic/inorganic) requires choice. Sure atoms don't have to choose dinner or lovers, but they do choose which electron partners to hitch up with. What sort of world do we live in? Sure seems like the open one MOQ suggests, and science seems increasingly to agree with this suggestion. You can look at pattern selection in terms of the evolutionary advantages of certain patterns. But is this the complete picture? How has this cosmos been achieved? Is 12 billion years enough to allow time to try out all the options to hit upon the right one? Maybe, like when I overcome yet another opponent at chess, it is best to only consider the interesting possibilities and ignore many others. Does the universe process itself like a computer or a human being? Does all choice (organic/inorganic) require some sense of what is possible? How else is selection and activity brought about? What is to be done? What choices do we have? Is there quality and the good? Is possessing value the very thing that makes it possible to create this world whilst forsaking all other possible worlds? Such is the task and our hope. Of course,it is not easy. And on our journey through the possible we have stumbled across many a corner of hell. Regards David M > > > In a recent post I got sneered at as a reductionist by dmb. I think his > point is well taken and illustrates something fundamental. By rejecting > reductionism dmb hopes to hold the door open for some sort of top down > organization system. He can correct me if I am wrong here but this > definitely seems to be on tactic taken by one of his heroes Ken Wilbur. > Ham > has the same tendency with his faith in a first cause. Platt too, with his > belief in a disembodied consciousness. gav does the same kind of thing > with > his seemingly drug induced visions of oneness everywhere. Dan also has > this > kind of view of oneness that can be tapped into through meditative > discipline, Scott Roberts used to say the same kind of thing claiming that > our brains are not producers of consciousness but receivers of it. > > > > According to this kind of view we see the panoply of nature spread before > us > as a kind of evaporation of this higher power spreading out in the > material > world. This results in a view of the MoQ that has Quality as some kind of > perfection or source that breaks apart to yield the world of appearances. > > > > To any whose views I have miscast, I will happily back off but if this is > a > correct interpretation of the points of view expressed then I do indeed > see > my position and that of the MoQ as being against it. Taken at face value > the > levels show a bottom up progression from inorganic to intellect. It does > not > flow in the other direction. If seen in the proper light the value of the > MoQ is its synthesis of Taoism with Darwin. I suppose this is what makes > the > evolution chapter in Lila such a disappointment. Pirsig points at the moon > without seeing the moon. He does the same thing in his discussion of > random > access when he concluded that a metaphysics of quality would really be a > metaphysics of randomness. He sees. He points. He turns away. > > > > I think the big problem I have in these discussions is that when I look > where Pirsig points I see the connection. I recognize the pattern and I > mistakenly assume that the pattern is clear to all who look. The levels > that > Pirsig offers do follow a clear evolutionary trajectory. At each 'level' > the > power of coincidence and pragmatism interact. Change (DQ) is always moving > into the future and forms (SQ) are left in the wake. Which forms are > selected depend on the past history and the present raw materials. The > factors that influence evolution are well known and can be applied at all > 'levels' regardless of how those levels are conceived. But is entirely a > bottom up process. Higher functions emerge only from stability at the > lower > levels. Certainly there is interaction and higher levels can and do impact > lower levels, a point taken up by Ian and occasionally Arlo. But no higher > level pattern can materially disrupt the lower level patterns it depends > upon without drastic consequences. > > > > If we insist on using the dismal concept of 'betterness' then it is > 'betterness' that has been programmed into us by these very processes. We > perceive this or that as better because it enhances our potential to > reproduce. It limits the extent to which our higher level patterns are > likely to disrupt the essential lower level patterns that we perceive as > the > true, the good and the beautiful. The perception of Value is in fact > programmed into us at a genetic level. So yes, it is 'preintellectual'. > > > > I understand the reluctance to adopt this kind of view. It places too much > emphasis and chance. It results is a fairly deterministic view. It leaves > us > adrift in a sea of coincidence without a Savior, without a purpose, > without > the divine. A host of MoQers turn away from this conception in fear and > disgust. I would liken this one of Freud's ego defense mechanisms; denial. > Ham calls it nihilism and rails against existentialism with its claim that > existence precedes essence and that man must look inward to define his own > purpose. Platt rejects the concept that anything as exquisitely beautiful > and complex as this world we live in could arise from chance. I have > described these positions and others like them as wishful thinking so > often, > I am reluctant to do it again but there it is. > > > > I think the moon Pirsig is pointing at is a true metaphysics of > randomness. > When you see evolution as the study of how random process interact to > create > the stabile patterns we see all around us, the connection becomes clear > and > the Value of the MoQ obvious. But Pirsig is not alone in pointing in the > direction and perhaps others have seen the way more clearly. > > > > I have been dropping William James quotes recently to show how integral to > James' thinking Darwin was. James was a leading spokesperson for the > psychological school of Functionalism. This school was directly opposed to > the structuralist school that believed that by looking inward one could > identify structural units of mental processes. James said rather, that > consciousness, in fact any behavior, must serve an evolutionary function. > It > must contribute to the reproductive success of those who manifest it. > Neither functionalism nor structuralism have proponents today. > Structuralism, with it reliance on a rather mystical methodology much like > one frequently advocated by dmb, died long ago. But functionalism was > absorbed and retained. Today it is most clearly seen in Evolutionary > Psychology which is in many ways a direct descendant of James. > > > > The bottom line here? > > > > It's turtles all the way up! > > > > Krimel > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
