Ron wrote (Fe. 23):
"Well put Jorge, Isn't this where we stand with
Quality?
Is'nt Quality outside the scope of our ability to
define
It? Only when we have isolated measurable data may we
Accurately define Energy or Quality, but isolation
And measurability are human conventions.
If the system is not clearly defined the
equation becomes useless. Therefore both quality and
energy must be defined to be useful. But this
definition
is not it. This definition limits it to what is being
measured."
Jorge (current): First of all my apologies for not
answering earlier. Ron, it looks to me that our views
are slowly converging. I do agree that "Quality is
outside the scope of our ability to define it." also
in that "isolation and measurability are human
conventions" .
I agree with you as well in that "the definition
is not 'it'" because "the definition limits it to what
is being measured". Nevertheless, since you seem to
place Energy and Quality, together in the same
package, I feel that some distinctions ought to be
made between both regarding measurability and
definition. These distinctions, I think, are
important to understanding the subject of this Thread,
that is, Science and the MOQ.
Quality, particularly as it is seen by the MOQ,
resists definition and measurement and we'd better
leave it like that. Little is to be gained, and much
to be lost, by attempts to encompass it in precise
(and hence, necessarily narrow) formulations. In this
it stands together with Beauty which has lost nothing
of its power as an idea for being equally reluctant.
In the case of Energy, on the other hand, to limit
it to what can be measured reinforces its strength and
usefulness as a scientific concept. To limit it or to
restrict Energy to the field of metrics makes it
possible to relate it to other physical variables by
unambiguous mathematical equations.
Science doesn't claim a monopoly on Energy. It
claims a monopoly on Energy only 'as understood by
Physics'; the same could be said of others like Force,
Time or Mass. Science, moreover, does not negate the
notion that there might be far more in those ideas
than what is contained in its, admittedly narrow,
scientific confines. Anyone could use Energy or Time
with other connotations, only that, in order to avoid
misapprehensions, the adopted meanings should be
stated.
It's a sobering thought that when we say "Energy as
understood by Physics" we actually mean, as understood
by Physics today, which is different than the way we
understood it 200 years ago and, very likely, the way
we'll understand it 100 years from now. The same to be
said for any other of the so-called basic physical
concepts.
The reason I am mentioning all this, which may be
considered as platitudes in a way, is that if someone
wants to interpret Quality as Energy, he/she is not
restricted to "Energy as in Physics" but is free to
pick from a number of other ways of understanding
Energy which have been held at various times.
For those interested in doing so I'd like to
mention the work of Max Jammer( a physicist and
philosopher of Science first at Princeton and later at
Bar Ilan Univ.) He did some remarkable work on the
history of the basic concepts of Physics and wrote
among other books on that subject, a book called
'Concepts of Force: a Study on the Foundations of
Dynamics'. He discusses in-depth how Force(and hence
Energy) was understood before the Greeks and by them,
by Hindu traditions, by Descartes, Leibniz, etc. up to
our times. Definitely worth reading for both
interested in the analogy Energy/Quality ( most of the
book can be read on-line for free at Google Books).
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