> Krimel wrote: > The way out is to acknowledge that we create levels on the fly and apply > them to our immediate context. There is no magic to the four MoQ levels, > they are JUST one way of seeing things. There are lots more. We use these > "levels on the fly" all the time as we zoom in, zoom out and refocus.
[Magnus] But how could such a "on the fly" set of levels be used to explain anything? If we make them up on the fly, we can invent two levels "coffee cups" and "tea cups" to tell coffee cups and tea cups apart. How would that be valuable to anyone? [Krimel] What it explains is that, it is not the levels that matter but how we structure them. We detect patterns. We do it better than any other animal. No machine can match us. Patterns are made of static and dynamic quality, active and passive elements. The MoQ provides a nice general purpose rough outline. It photographic terms it is a "wideshot," an overview. But in living moment to moment we do not look at the world in terms of its inorganic, biological, social or intellectual levels. We think in terms of the velocity and trajectory of the cars around use in traffic. We consult 3D cognitive maps of where we are in relation to where we are going. Which levels we consider and what those levels are made of depend entirely on the present context and our previous histories. But I think that the MoQ says that what is really important in any context is what changes and what holds still. [Magnus] There *is* a way to make strict level definitions that is both discrete and dependent. Do I have to tell everyone one by one that my new essay contains one or two answers to the questions raised here recently? [Krimel] But let's set that aside for a moment. I'm not sure how far I want to push it and because you deserve comment on your essay. I think you are headed in the right direction in several respects. I too have an interest in seeing the MoQ applied to science. I am not sure what to make of the quantum business. I don't know that it makes sense to talk about quanta having histories and I am certain it make no sense to speculate about "before" the Big Bang. But complexity, probability, evolutionary and information theories all seem intimately related to the MoQ the way I see it. I especially appreciated your use of information theory near the end of your essay. You notion of discreteness as orthogonal lines is a bit like James' idea that our memories of things in the world and things in the world have separate histories that intersect when we are in contact with them. But I don't think the levels actually achieve this and I'm afraid your additional levels don't solve the problem. The problem as I see is: what static qualities do living things have that distinguishes them from inorganic things? I would say that living patterns participate in their own stasis or persistence. They replicate. They encode experiences of the past and iterate them into the future. Biological patterns are recursive and actively participate in the recursion. Teleology emerges at the biological level. In its most primitive form, life is a balance of inorganic static patterns that drives replicating molecules. In its most advanced form it involves budgeting money for Junior's college education. The drive to persist, to live and to replicate is a necessary condition for the living. Nature strongly discourages any alternative. Biology is in many ways the study of the variability of those replicating patterns in terms of both genetics and behavior. Inorganic patterns do not participate in their own persistence. They do not replicate. They are static across long spans of time. Their interactions can be described with relatively simple equations even down to the quantum level. I haven't thought through the social level. Perhaps Arlo has. But I suspect I am just throwing up the same kinds of arguments that led you to write your essay in the first place. So never mind me... 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/
