Hello everyone
---------------------------------------- > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:29:39 -0400 > Subject: [MD] The MoQ, by Jove! > > [craig] > 1) The laws of physics are the same since Newton as they were when the > galaxies were being formed (though they might have been different in the > fraction of a second after the Big Bang). > > [Special Thanks to Dan!] [And a special You're Welcome to Krimel!] > Annotation #97: > Within the MOQ, the IDEA that static patterns of value start with the > inorganic level is considered a good IDEA. But the MOQ itself doesn't start > before sentience. The MOQ, like science, starts with human experience. > Remember the early talk in ZMM about Newton's Law of Gravity? Scientific laws > without people to write them are a scientific impossibility. > (Robert Pirsig) > > [Krimel] > It seem to me that Pirsig, like James, is saying that concepts are derived > from perception. Without sentience there are no concepts. But this leave open > what I take to be Craig's point. I take "laws of physics" to mean a set of > relationships. These relationships may be conceptualized into ideas in any > number of ways. In a strict sense "laws of physics" sounds like a set of > concepts and it is; just as whatever I say right now is, and what anyone, who > responds to this, says; will be. What we do here is conceptualize > conceptualization. It is a recursion. That's what puts the "Meta" in the MoQ. > > I take Craig and possibly Pirsig to be saying, that there are relationships, > processes, distinctions that exist independently of any conceptual patterns > of them. Dan: Yes I think that's what Craig is saying. I've been over this quote literally a thousand times but I don't see Mr Pirsig possibly saying "that there are relationships, processes, distinctions that exist independently of any conceptual patterns of them". If he did, it would contradict what he says here: "In this plain of understanding static patterns of value are divided into four systems: inorganic patterns, biological patterns, social patterns and intellectual patterns. They are exhaustive. That's all there are. If you construct an encyclopedia of four topics-Inorganic, Biological, Social and Intellectual-nothing is left out. No "thing," that is. Only Dynamic Quality, which cannot be described in any encyclopedia, is absent." [LILA] Dan comments: Note the passage: "That's all there are." That would seem to negate your theory. Krimel: To renew an example I have used before, the planet Jupiter is currently understood in terms of celestial mechanics and astrophysics and spectral analysis. Ancient peoples described it as a character in their stories about themselves and their place in cosmos. > > I would suggest that common themes among these stories have some remarkable > similarities and they correspond to scientific understanding. First consider > the function of such tales. Nearly all cultures have names for the cycles of > the moon and the procession of the stars and the wandering of the planets. > They celebrate these relationships in tales of mighty deeds or wily animals. > More often than not these mythological tales relate directly to the effects > of the season that accompany heavenly objects as heralds of seasonal change. > For example considered that Dussenbury's Rocky Boy were close relatives of > the Lakota whose hopes and dreams died in 1890 during the Moon of Popping > Trees. > The celestial mythos was not meant to be read metaphorically. It reduced > uncertainty about changes in the weather and added meaning to the > relationship between the heavens and the Earth. It is significant that chief > among the Gods more often than not was The Sun God, from the Egyptian Ra to > Apollo to Mythras or the blood thirsty Aztec Huitzilopochtli. It is perhaps > more than coincidental that in English Sun and Son are homonyms. Light is > illumination and enlightenment and seeing the light, the victory of light > over the forces of darkness. In the mythology of science, the sun is the > source of energy that fuels all living things. > > Even more fundamentally, nearly every known civilization and religion of any > sophistication begins its mythology with a tale of how Order triumphs over > Chaos. In China both the Tao te Ching and the more ancient I Ching are the > culmination of centuries of attempts to directly measure chance and chaos. > First through the reading of chance in the cracks in heated tortoise shells > and later through the casting of yarrow stalks and coins. In Taoist art, > emperors often sought after stonesl chance formations of granite that > exemplified the dynamic but harmonious interaction of yin and yang in > patterns of white and black stone or the swirling of shades in jade. > > The conceptual correspondence between modern and ancient traditions suggests > that both aim toward understanding of certain empirical perceptual > relationships that hold regardless of how they are conceived. This is of > course a claim similar to the Perennial philosophy without the New Age spin. > It also suggests that the relationships described mythologically, continue > independent of their conceptual framework. > > I think the problem for some, lies in the recursion. That sounds like > Pirsig's point to me. Talking about these relations even as relations > involves conceptualization. The MoQ is a conceptualization about > conceptualizing. But at the same time it is important to recognize that > concepts even those about other concepts are derived from the perception of a > sentient. As perception is derived from sensation and sensation is derived > from the transduction of physical energy in to bio-electro-chemical patterns. > > Scientific laws and mythological tales are both conceptualizations of > perception. What separates them is the degree to which they reduce > uncertainty about the relations they aim to describe. But conception depends > on perception. In the end they can be hard to separate and their mutual > dependence is almost entirely one way. Dan: Right. When we talk about "laws of physics" what laws are we talking about? The laws that exist today are not the same as the laws that existed in the 1600s. The odds are that in a hundred years the laws of physics will scarce resemble the laws of physics as we understand them today. "Why does everybody believe in the law of gravity then?" "Mass hypnosis. In a very orthodox form known as `education."' "You mean the teacher is hypnotizing the kids into believing the law of gravity?" "Sure." "That's absurd." (ZMM) Is it? I don't think so... Dan _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live™: Life without walls. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_allup_1a_explore_032009 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/
