Hi Magnus,
Looks to me like we use the English language differently, as comments below
indicate.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Magnus Berg" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 3:33 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] How far do you go to preserve individual life?
"> On 2010-09-18 13:43, [email protected] wrote:
[P]
I think you left out the human capacity for memory. Instellectual
patterns are
learned from society except some rudimentary patterns some believe are
innate.
Removing someone from society who then still exhibits intellectual
ability
doesn't prove he wasn't dependent on society for learning those patterns
durning his formative years. So I think your example of non-dependency on
society leaves something to be desired, along the lines Arlo has pointed
out..
And I just think you're inventing excuses as you go. What it boils down to
is this:
If a person is separated from the society from which he learned an
intellectual pattern. Say he's in high orbit around the earth and the
earth was struck by a big bad monster asteroid leaving the earth in a
messy pool of lava. Will that person be able to recollect what he had
learned? In that instant, those intellectual patterns must be supported by
some social patterns, and those social patterns must be supported by
biological and so on. The social patterns of his old human society is
vaporized, so you can't use those. Are you saying he will lose his
capacity to think just because everything else he ever knew is gone?
]P]
You needn't go into orbit to illustrate the point. Robinson Crusoe who was
left alone on a desert island showed his capacity to think, supported
by social patterns in his memory. No "vaporizing" of social patterns
occurred.
Magnus
Pirsig, you and all others who claim it are just doing it because you
can't find the real dependency, which is the society of the human body
itself. The intellectual patterns of each human being depend on the
language of the nerve signals and synapses of the human brain. Take
*that* away and the intellectual patterns goes with it. You might even
be able to sustain the biological "life" of the rest of the body,
because that is not really dependent on neither the synapses nor the
intellectual patterns. But then, what you have a brain dead person.
Don't you see that it all makes sense? We have here a direct and
absolute dependency from intellectual to social through biological down
to inorganic.
[P] The term "absolute" may be what you are relying on. There are people
with
defective nerve signals and brain synapses who still are capable of
forming
intellectual patterns. There are degrees of biological functioning. So I
consider your argument to be flawed.
Excuses, excuses. Why would defective nerve signals and brain synapses
prohibit them from thinking? The may be limited somehow, and may not be
able to do this or that common task. Degrees of biological functioning can
of course result in degrees of higher level functions. They're still
absolutely dependent. If they weren't, they wouldn't affect higher levels,
but as you say, they do. So your argument came out flawed, not mine.
[P]
OK. When you wrote "absolute" I assumed a totally functioning brain.
[P]
I think I may be getting a glimmer of understanding you. Correct me if
I'm
wrong.
1. Your reference to "underlying assumptions" is restricted to your
three
stacks, Computer, Universal and Human. It doesn't mean, as I first
thought,
that your system could reveal all the assumptions underlying a
philosophical
point of view such as those underlying science.
Magnus
Hmm... I wouldn't want to restrict myself to only three stacks. On the
other hand I wouldn't dare to claim it could reveal *all* underlying
assumptions.
[P]
OK.
2. The underlying assumption of your stacks is that all knowledge can be
divided into three parts -- things that happen in computers, things that
happen
without human observation, and things that happen as interpreted by
humans.
Nah, rather that the MoQ levels can be applied to those three stacks.
The levels contain different patterns in those three stacks.
[P]
Hmmm. This is where I get lost.
A social pattern in the human perspective stack can consist of a city
hall, schools, library, fire fighters and a natural language, Swedish in
my city.
A social pattern in the computer stack can consist of a CPU, memory, hard
drive, I/O ports and a language of ones and zeros.
A social pattern in the universal stack can consist of a brain, heart,
blood, eyes, hands and a language used to see, feel and move muscles.
[P]
Here's where we really depart language-wise. "Social" to me is about
people. To you it means any group of related things. Also, "language"
to me is what people speak to convey their thoughts. To you it includes
whatever makes computers and muscles work. The different meanings
we attribute to English words probably accounts for our differences
about "support" and "dependency." .
3. Your stack system does not reveal its underlying assumption. It
doesn't
appear anywhere in the stacks.
No, as I said, I didn't claim it would reveal all assumptions. The MoQ
is still the metaphysics. I don't claim to replace that.
[P]
Your stacks "apply" to Pirsig's levels but do not "replace" his
metaphsicis
which, except of DQ, is all about the levels and the interplay of their
static
patterns.So it appears your stacks are metaphysical in nature, covering
all
reality. Thus my confusion.
Ok, as I've said before, stacks are really not necessary, but if you take
a look at the three quite different social patterns I've described above,
I have realized that not many accept all of them as social patterns.
Personally I have a hard time realizing that anyone can't see the
similarity and that they are metaphysically identical. So that's why I
thought stacks could be a good way to both acknowledge the difference, but
at the same time recognize the metaphysical similarity.
Thanks for your continued patience. My ultimate question would be: "How
is it
possible to exclude the human perspective from knowledge unless one is
God?"
Knowledge? Well, I think we must back up one step here. We can't *know*
anything, I'd say. However, if we assume the MoQ, we *can* know all
these things without having to be some god
[P]
What I meant to convey was that while you have isolated one of your
stacks as
the human perspective stack, the other two stacks are also the result of
the
human perspective. (I figure each stack is a stack of knowledge, i.e.,
intellectual patterns.)
Yes, I understood that. But I don't only see the four levels as our window
to the reality "out there" as you seem to do. You seem to still be stuck
in Descarte's "I think, therefore I am". But I'm not.
I say that if we assume the MoQ and the levels, then we can not only
understand reality as combinations of those levels intellectually. We can
also assume that reality really *is* built by patterns of those levels
(because we assumed the MoQ and the levels). We can look at old layers of
bedrock and determine that these layers were really laid down there x
billion years ago. It becomes not just something we can know
intellectually now, it becomes something that really did happen those x
billion years ago.
And no, I'm not trapped in SOM, don't even think it.
[P]
Sorry but I don't follow your argument at all. On the one hand, the MOQ
is an intellectual description of reality. On the other hand, its levels are
reality itself. Seems we can eat the menu.
I assume your a computer expert, Magnus. Perhaps if I had the same
expertise in that field as you, I would understand you better. Or,
perhaps it's the difference in our native languages. Or, maybe it's just
me. Anyway, thanks for your patience.
Platt
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