>[Krimel] > "I don't think the MoQ would change the way science > is practiced so much as > it changes our understanding of what science does. > As a practical matter > science already functions according to the MoQ. > Scientists look for static > patterns in their data. They look for patterns in > the objects and forces > they study and the relationships among those objects > and forces."
Jorge: I'd like to comment on Krimel's above paragraph. First, about the MOQ "changing our understanding of what Science does" . I wouldn't say that Science "does", scientists 'do'; much in the same vein that Art doesnt do something, artists 'do'. [Krimel] I have complained about others use of personification in past and here I am guilty of it myself. Substitute "scientists do" for "science does" above. I would like to say it won't happen again but it probably will. Personification is oh so tempting a trap to fall into and I find myself complaining at motes in the eyes of others while there is a 2 by 4 in my own. [Jorge] What scientists 'do' is not necessarily looking for static patterns in their data; scientific research, as an occupation, is extraordinary varied and multifaceted and to reduce it to just looking for static patterns, seems to me extreme reductionism. [Krimel] Perhaps seeking patterns is not the 'only' thing scientist but it most certainly is the main thing that they d. It is the activity toward which they aim the bulk of their effort. Scientific laws, taxonomies, theories and hypothesis are all statements about the relationships among static patterns. Scientists seek to construct and test these formal statements. [Jorge] Admittedly some scientists may be looking for patterns "in the objects and forces they study" but many more are not concerned with objects and forces at all. Or, let me put it some other way, to consider the external world merely in terms of objects and forces may have been a good description of the mechanicist outlook of the world prevalent in Science up to, say, 80 years ago, but not the prevalent outlook now. [Krimel] I am hard pressed to think of a science that is not concerned with objects or forces. Help me out, ok? 80 years is better than 150 but it is still to long ago. It barely catches Heisenberg and excludes Gödel, Shannon, and Mandelbrot. [Jorge] I was far happier with the approach in your former Posts of thinking of the scientist's activity as a way to reduce Uncertainty ( to reduce, not to eliminate it). Conforming a process or event to a pattern is not, as you well know, the only way to reduce uncertainty. [Krimel] I dont see the conflict here. Finding static patterns reduces uncertainty. Any formal scientific statement is, or is about, static patterns; that is, relationship that are stabile or predictable within established boundaries. Again I am hard pressed to think of another way of reducing uncertainty. [Jorge] Try to put yourself, for a moment, in the case of Ivarsson's scientist friend (let's call him Mr.X) who was asking how could MOQ help Science. You presume to tell Mr.X. that MOQ knows better than him what he does at work: he's supposed to be looking for 'static patterns'. [Krimel] Mr. X can do whatever he wants. I said the MoQ helps me understand what he is doing and I think it will help him as well. But I 'presumed' only to attempt to answer Chris' question. [Jorge] Problem is, as you yourself said in another post, that 'the terms static and dynamic do not have special meaning in the MOQ" . I've just emerged from a long discussion on Patterns, with the impression that the meaning of patterns in the MOQ is also rather diffuse. [Krimel] I do not see were my use of these terms implies any special meaning at all. Static means: 1. Pertaining to or characterized by a fixed or stationary condition. 2. Showing little or no change 3. Lacking movement, development, or vitality Dynamic means: 1. Relating to energy or to objects in motion. 2. An interactive system or process, especially one involving competing or conflicting forces: 3. Characterized by continuous change, activity, or progress I would suggest that in any topic you take up in this forum you will come away with the impression of diffusion of meaning. This reflects the different understandings and modes of expression if each participant. What else would you expect to find? [Jorge] Suppose Mr.X. is trying to understand, say, the role of a certain enzyme in a biochemical process, how can this new system of thought you propose to him be of some use? [Krimel] Since we don't know how Mr. X understands what he is doing, it is hard to say if any of this is new or how helpful it would be to him. Perhaps he is interested only on his narrow field of focus and not so much on how what he is up to relates in the scheme of things. But I don't think his research will get far if he is not looking at his enzyme in terms of what is stabile and what is changing within the process in question. I suspect he is examining flow of energy within the process and changes in the patterns of molecular configuration throughout the process. But he or Mr. Y might be looking at how deficiencies or excesses of the enzyme impact infant mortality and how that affects or is affected by social patterns. The MoQ helps me, called me Mr. K, understand that everything that we do and all of our understanding can be formulated in terms Yin and Yang, the passive and the active. The tension between these principles is confined neither to the external world nor to our inner worlds of sensation and memory. Subjects and Objects are both constructed of static and dynamic qualities. [Jorge] In former conversations I kept asking a question which, I think, is a relevant one --- Does the MOQ need Science? --- Because, if it doesn't, why not leave Science alone for the time being? Perhaps later on, when the MOQ is more firmly established as a Metaphysics, the time would arrive to change Science's numerous shortcomings. [Krimel] I hardly think science has received too much attention within the MoQ. Pirsig spends a lot of time in Lila complaining about a form and understanding of science that I think we both agree is either dead or dying. I think it is critical because the mystical metaphysicians in our midst seem to think that 'reality' is a kind of condensation of consciousness or the absolute. That reality is constructed from the top down. I think this is absurd and the MoQ if understood from a scientific perspective emphasizes that reality is constructed from the bottom up. 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/
