Hi Bo
* What type of pattern is the observed data of a falling stone?
The observation of a falling stone is a visual experience and thus
biological, that goes for stones at rest also. Hope this doesn't make
stones "biological" ;-)
That wasn't not exactly what I was asking, but as far as you understood the
question, you got it right. I asked about the *data*, not the experience of
observation.
* What type of pattern is the explanation of why the stone falls?
The social level has many explanation why a stone falls, but all
included some animated force (god) imbued in things or in the ground
attracting it. The intellectual level has the gravity explanation, the
latter is higher value.
That's just wrong. A social explanation is like a green dream, the words just
don't mix.
* What type of pattern is the stone? Does it exist to you?
A stone is some inorganic aggregate. It exists to me and to all who
observe it ... and to all I tell that I've seen it if they trust my
word, but that .... alas.
Is the observing crucial to the stone's status as existing? Does it exist before
someone observes it. If it doesn't, what happens when the first person observes
it? Does it pop into existence right there and then?
Then to the said crucial issue
Pirsig:
There has been a tendency to extend the meaning of "social" down
into the biological with the assertion that, for example, ants
are social, but I have argued that this extends the meaning to a
point where it is useless for classification. I said that even
atoms can be called societies of electrons and protons. And since
everything is thus social, why even have the word? I think the
same happens to the term, "intellectual," when one extends
it much before the Ancient Greeks.*
Bo's comment:
The same (=usless for classification) happens to an intellectual
level before the Greeks. It means that the SOL interpretation is
vouched for by Pirsig.
Magnus:
First, isn't it a stretch to take that as an approval of SOL? Just
because he thinks the intellectual level appeared by that *time*
doesn't mean that SOL is the only possible result.
"Greeks" in a MOQ context=SOM, ergo Pirsig sees the emergence of
SOM identical to the 4th. level's emergence. This you possibly can't
deny.
I see the connection, but it's rather circumstantial. And I still think Pirsig
is wrong on both the social and intellectual levels.
As I've said before, they can be valid viewpoints if only humans are considered,
but this is supposed to be a meta-*physics*, not meta-*humanity*.
Second, as I said the other day. I have refuted the above too many
times to count so I don't take it as proof of anything. I simply
think Pirsig is wrong here and I would frankly love to hear what he
would have to say about my essay.
Well, about Pirsig being wrong is a way out for you, but it's here he
is consistent with the message his ideas convey, and what gives the
MOQ it's explanatory power, while your "thinking intellect" is SOM's
old tea.
Come on Bo. You repeatedly claim that Pirsig is wrong as well. you have written
on may occasions that he should have said this and considered that.
And I don't see what you mean by my "thinking intellect" as SOM's old tea. I
don't require a thought process for intellectual patterns, only some way to
represent another pattern via language. It can be a brain, a memory card, a hard
drive, a mail or a piece of paper with some text on it.
Your SOL messes up the levels. To say that intellectual patterns requires the
ability to distinguish between subjects and objects raises lots of unanswerable
questions. For example:
What is the text on a piece of paper? *It* can't distinguish between S/O, so I
guess it's not intellectual patterns in your SOL. So what are they? Just
inorganic coal? But you know very well that the text on that piece of paper is
so much more than just the coal. If you know the language it's written in, you
can read what it says. And that "what it says" is the intellectual patterns
superimposed on the coal.
And now, after just checking out one example, we see that it's your SOL that
requires an old fashioned SOM mind to do the "distinguishing". Perhaps you never
thought about it, but it's actually an underling assumption in your reasoning
and without it, it falls flat.
I'll summarize:
The social level does *not* extend down to atoms.
Atoms are created by the atomic level where the only forces (i.e.
types of experience/value) are the strong and weak nuclear forces
and electromagnetism. Also gravity is involved but that comes from
the lower, spatial level.
Further, molecules are not societies because they are created by the
chemical level. The forces (experience/value) here are the atom
bonding preferences of different types of atoms.
After that, some basic combinations of molecules are biological
value. If two molecules happens to have a good 3D fit with
eachother, they can stick together. That's the molecular version of
biological sexual attraction.
Good, you (no longer) don't attribute Q-social value to the inorganic
and biological levels. The 3D fit as an inorganic prerequisite for
biology sounds scientific but OK.
I have never attributed "Q-social value to the inorganic and biological levels".
You have misunderstood my examples.
This sets the stage for the social level. If that combination of
molecules are better (i.e. more moral) than they are separate, they
will stick together. *That's* a social pattern and it is
metaphysically identical to two humans combining to make a family,
or a few people with different abilities combining to make a small
village. All are better as a whole than the parts individually, they
are even better than the sum of its parts.
But here you go again and it stems from not having understood the
MOQ tenet about the levels as an escape from the former level's
limitations. "Social" has little to do with mutual attraction, but is about
transcending biology, the first social (value) sign is burial rituals that
indicate the notion of an existence beyond. NB I don't mean "saving of
souls" as in Christendom (which is intellect's body/soul) but existence
in a most tangible sense.
And here *you* go again with your metahumanity. Have you *no* imagination
whatsoever? There *are* other species you know.
And about "former level's limitations", I wrote the below section about that in
my essay. I'd say your "escape from the former level's limitations" is rather
single-minded.
"When levels are compared, they are often seen as opposed to each other. It's
always this combat between the lower and higher levels and the higher is always
supposed to grab the moral victory. But no thought have ever been given to how
the higher level pattern got started in the first place. For example the social
pattern family would never have been created without the biological pattern
lust. But even so, these two patterns are always described to be in direct
opposition to each other. It's of course true that lust to another can destroy a
family, but it is often forgotten that this same lust also was the initial spark
that got the family started in the first place. This is also true for all other
social patterns; this is the biological level setting the stage for the social.
They all got started because a biological urge happened to result in a socially
valuable structure. A city got started next to a creek because someone needed
the water for farming, then a hardware store came along to provide tools for the
farmer(s), and then I'll let Mark Knopfler continue with some lines from
“Telegraph Road” by Dire Straits:
Then came the churches then came the schools
Then came the lawyers then came the rules
Then came the trains and the trucks with their loads
And the dirty old track was the telegraph road"
When I see a "thing", I want to explain what types of
forces/patterns are used to keep that thing intact. You don't seem
to bother much with that though. For example, what patterns keep a
dog together? Biological you'd say, but does taste, smell and touch
keep the dog together? Does the tail taste good to the back end of
the dog and that's why the tail doesn't fall off?
The MOQ merely asserts that life began as a dynamic escape from
the inorganic, that's all it claims.
As I said, you don't seem to bother. Well, I *do*! And since I do, I've tried to
make heads and tails of it instead of striking the ostrich pose.
If you remember Pirsig says that no
rational explanation can be found for how this came about
I agree that no rational explanation can be found to capture the workings of DQ.
But that does *not* mean that we can't say anything about how inorganic matter
developed into what we call life. As usual, I have a section about this in my
essay, it seems I have to point at them one by one.
"The inorganic level builds molecules in accordance to its rules and quality
events. These molecules can become quite large and they can even, still using
only inorganic quality events, build large crystals and molecules that resemble
self replication. But when the inorganic level has done what it can, and created
massive molecules with all these protrusions and intrusions, then it can't do
anymore. All these molecules are just floating around in the primordial soup and
no inorganic quality events can be used to refine or even change the status quo.
The inorganic level has simply finished its job. (This is of course not entirely
true. I'm sure it had plenty of things to do, but let's imagine this was the
case in a limited environment.) This is the time for dynamic quality to get to
work. Instead of waiting around for eons without anything happening, it started
combining the combinable parts of the soup and thereby created a completely new
set of static rules, the biological level."
and also
says that the MOQ combines creationism and Darwinism (spans
religion and science by making them respectively its own 3rd. and 4th.
levels) You suffer from the illusion that the MOQ will improve on
science and provide rational explanations how dogs are kept together.
Biological value does that like inorganic holds (what was Pirsig's
example?) a glass together.
No Bo, I suffer from you constantly trying to make me join you in your ostrich
pose.
I think you and many others are making it way too easy for
yourselves. You only care to solve one particular problem you set
your sights on, but the rest is just left as a pile of rubbish.
Marsha took over at this point, she liked your Bo bashing, but how it
developed I don't know. Such "instant-philosophy" I don't bother with.
It's not "instant-philosophy", if you by that mean "cheap hip-shot replies".
Don't let the short time between the posts fool you. I suggest you read it, you
just might learn something.
Magnus
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