Squonk, As mentioned earlier I am in lurking mode and will not be able to engage in extended comment. But just a couple of points on this thread in general, again. As I said before it is so fraught with confusion and error as to be painful to read but part of the fascination of reading, rather like gawking at a train wreck, was wondering how long it would take the seemingly reasonable Squonk to melt down into the flaming crazy we all know and love.
Only Squonk could start a thread in which I actually find myself agreeing at any level with dmb about something as ridiculous as Wilber's pre-trans fallacy and Ham on the proprietary self. Nice work. By the way if "reductionist" is supposed to be a derogatory term, are the human genome project and quantum physics supposed to give indication of the "badness" of reductionism? And I am "showboating" by actually looking at what happens to your experimental subjects? Interjecting facts into speculation does tend to have a dampening effect on absurdity, rather the way that the Logos compensates for the nonsense that so frequently emerges from the Mythos. Thanks for the new wrinkle on why Pirsig's take on evolution is so corrosive. As through we could discern what "betterness" will be in the future and push towards it... As I said, this can only lead to genocide when we put moral imperatives above human life. But you go further by pointing to good examples of attempts to stimulate DQ through politics. This is of course what should be done. The problem is it does not always work and the Iraq war is just as much an attempt to stimulate DQ as is public broadcasting. "Betterness" is not even a word much less the goal of or necessary result of evolution at any level. Evolution is always driving toward stasis, balance, harmony, the path of least resistance. Calling it "betterness" doesn't really put a smiley face on heat death in my view. Anyway thanks for the rap on the head with Maxwell's hammer. Like I said before, it's like body slamming. Good to have the crazy Squonk back! Krimel -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2008 6:05 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [MD] moq thought experiement 1. Hello Krimel, or is Krim better? Thoughts on TE1: This thread was often hard to read because I had so many reservations about the experiment. It started out as sci-fi but gravitated toward an ill conceived understanding of the brain-in-a-vat scenario. Brain-in-a-vat is a modern variant on Descartes' clever demons argument. It is the idea that our experience is being manipulated by some external agency for purposes of its own which may or not be in harmony with our own. s: Re. Brain in a vat: I wasn't thinking of BiaV, Ian introduced that. But if you were in fact BiaV the idea is that you would have absolutely no idea this was in fact so. The very logic of the construction means that to all intents you are the experiences. Krim: If this were the case then what Squonk's TE1 proposes is that we skip the middle man and become the clever demons. ? s: It wasn't. Krim: The point of the experiment, as I understood it, was to somehow increase the power of the "dynamic function" through the forced mysticization of neonates. I can't see much benefit in this. Who are the beneficiaries of this manipulation; the neonates or the demons? s: Yeah, the term demon is a moral term isn't it? So right from the get go you're messing about with peoples traditional notions of good and evil aren't you? And by the way Krim, Descartes had to talk about demons because, as you know, Descrates' circle doesn't ever challenge the authority of God. You've introduced concepts of personal identity. Again, as you know, Buddhist thought rejects these concepts, so that's out. Krim: Moral duty was invoked. It seemed like the kind of morality that justified genocide of native peoples on five continents under the guise of Social Darwinism. It works for collectivizing farms and purifying races but it's rash to think that you can "force" the dynamic force or that if you did "betterness" would result. s: Here?are?some examples of forcing the Dynamic force: A government social policy to provide free education with an emphasis on intellectual stimulation. A publicly owned broadcasting service with a remit to provide educational content for those who wish to participate. These examples may be described as moral imperatives within moq logic. That is to say, the intellectual level as been observed to control the social level in a moral struggle for further evolutionary development. You will note this is not?a deduction Krim. The further evolutionary development is achieved in the moq by a DQ/sq balancing act between Dynamic functions and static functions. In TE1, the balancing act is an extrapolation of current evolutionary trends into the far future. Titillating, but i was bored. OK? Krim: Larry Niven did a series of short stories that put an interesting twist on creating DQ from the experience of bliss. In Niven's world there were wireheads who had electrodes planted in the pleasure centers of their brain. Many of them sat in rooms pushing a button until the batteries ran out or they starved to death. It might be a little messy but certainly less coercive that TE1. I would submit that the quality of the imagined DQ jolt ought to be about equal and it avoids Wilber's pre-trans fallacy. s: Maybe this is would be a good move for TE2. Krim: Much is made of the supposed pure state of the newborn. Squonk and gav wax poetic: [gav] babies are pure like animals; they are fully present, free of the reification that passes for reality in the adult world. [Squonk] What fascinates me is the extraordinarily Dynamic function of a blank slate human brain: This fine isthmus between biological patterns and the whole mythos seems way more powerful than any evolutionary development before it or after it. A whole mythos could be erased because of it. Krim: Nice but not right. The newborn's brain is neither blank nor pure. It is incomplete in form and function. s: Pardon me Krim, but i think your desire to showboat may have blinded you to the shear fact that such a brain has not had the requisite experiential stimulus to be able to imitate social patterns. This is what Gav and i are advancing, if Gav will excuse me for speaking on his behalf? Krim (showboating): It weights less than a third of an adult brain. It has lots of growing to do. Much of its growth will be determined by what happens to it. s: By what happens to it? Really? Have you not just explained the very process Gav alludes to, and which i called the mythos? Krim: The nerve cells will mylinate and sprout dendrites. More will sprout than are needed and by puberty they will begin to thin out. s: A reductionist description of the mythos unless i am mistaken. The human genome project is a reductionist description of biological life. Quantum physics is a reductionist description of particles and molecules. Krim: Infants are totally self centered focusing on achieving their own physical and biological satisfaction at the expense of others around them. Where is the "purity" and fascination in this? s: The purity?you allude to?is unmediated experience of DQ. The fascination you allude to?is generated by?contemplation of the Dynamic function of the young human brain. Krim: As to the question of the effect of disconnecting a newborn's sensory input, I suspect all that would happen is that the babies would die. It's called failure to thrive. Again you could accomplish this more efficiently with adults like Teri Shaivo, who are simply kept alive artificially. If your infants did survive in industrial quantities more Shavios is what you would get. s: Teri may be having a ball in some sense? For all we know he may be in a permanent state of bliss? I don't know who Teri Shaivo is or anything about his circumstances. Krim: There is ample evidence from studies of Romanian orphans that sensory and social deprivation has devastating effects of children. Some just waste away. Back in the 60's and 70's Harry Harlow showed that even infant Rhesus monkeys require base levels of maternal stimulation to thrive. s: I am happy to agree with all this. And i know i'm being a pain and everything, but it could be argued that all you are saying is an imposition from your mythos? The language and concepts you employ are the mythos. If it should be that the mythos evolves to address your concerns, then we may have the basis for TE2: the return of killer TE (this time it's personal). Krim: At a purely theoretical level even a disconnected nervous system has neurons firing randomly. The newborn brain grows in response to stimulation from the environment. One might speculate that in the absence of sensory experience even the random firings of neurons might be shaped into a world of sorts but it seems dubious that any "betterness" would result. s: I find this speculation most interesting. But to continue... Krim: The Matrix used VR style technology to provide sensory stimulation to the "coppertops". This circumvents death by boredom both to the infants and the audience. Stories about how clever demons manipulate perception allows a host of techniques, from misunderstandings, ala "Three's Company" through the schemes of ancient orders in the "Da Vinci Code" or "Left Behind". Principalities and powers can be envisioned exploiting any toe hold to control or enslave us. s:?These issues?inherently?assume the ontological status of the individual, which is the very thing demolished by Buddhist argument, and the moq Krim. Unless me is berry berry misha mistaken master Obi? Krim: But TE1 seems to advocate becoming the demon not being demonized. This from Squonk seems to be the "justification" for the enterprise: [Squonk] I asserted that some patterns are more dynamic than others: 1. The moq states that DQ is real and moral. 2. Static patterns regarded as being 'more dynamic' maximise DQ and potential for further evolution. 3. It is therefore a moral imperative to promote 2. Your reply has been to consistently insist that the hierarchy of levels determines which patterns are more dynamic: Ok well I insist the some patterns are more static than others. Krim: 1. The MoQ states that DQ is an adjective for a kind of Quality and that morality is more highly expressed at higher levels. s: Same difference. 2. Some dynamic patterns might be regarded as more static than others; thus in a better position to latch and to bring stability into evolution. If evolution has a goal, stability is it. s: The goal of evolution is DQ. 3. This is all too wacked to determine morality of any sort much less moral imperatives. Much rests on the whole "Dynamic is good" fallacy. Dead babies ought to be enough to show most how silly that notion is. Krimel s: Oh dear.?Inverting what i stated reverses the arrow of evolution Krim, because what i stated was the moq position. When i said, 'I assert...' i should have said, 'The moq asserts...' However, DNA is a Dynamic function, and a good example of 2. (Static patterns regarded as being 'more dynamic' [Dynamic functions] maximise DQ and potential for further evolution) which justifies the moq arrow of evolution. If TE1 fails it fails because it significantly blocks evolution. However, TE1 accommodated evolution by handing that over lock stock and vat to quantum computers. TE2 will simply combine the two rather than separate them. Have your dvd collection at hand Krim... squonk 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/
