Hello everyone On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 2:39 PM, 118 <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Dan, > > On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 9:35 PM, Dan Glover <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hello everyone >> >> On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 3:27 PM, 118 <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Hi Ian, >>> Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I appreciate you intention with >>> the latter part of your post. As you well know, my response to Dan >>> was that I was unaffected by his personal attack on what I posted, and >>> wished to return to the topic. I care enough about MoQ to refrain >>> from such rhetoric (most of the time). >> > [Dan]> >> What personal attack? You are the one who basically called us all >> idiots by stating (from a trained biologist's perspective) that we're >> glibly using the term "evolution" in meaningless ways. >> >> I may not care much for your posts but I do care a great deal about >> the MOQ. I don't like to see it trashed by someone who does not seem >> to know the basic terminology involved. If you took my words as a >> personal attack, you are mistaken. > > [Mark] > I apologize if you feel that my posts appear naive to you, and perhaps > destructive.
Dan: No, not destructive. But not instructive either. I guess I expect better from you, if you are indeed who you say you are. Mark: I am not sure I can do anything to help you along these > lines. I presented some reasons why I am interested in discussing the > use of "evolution", and why its biological sense may not be > appropriate for MoQ. I do not believe I have received any intelligent > response to these from you. You have an interpretation of Lila, that > may not be mine. I am not sure what tired answers you are referring > to, but I can certainly address these if you present them to me. Dan: I've posted this quote before without success, but as they say, try, try again: ". . . It isn't Lila that has quality; it's Quality that has Lila. Nothing can have Quality. To have something is to possess it, and to possess something is to dominate it. Nothing dominates Quality. If there's domination and possession involved, it's Quality that dominates and possesses Lila. She's created by it. She's a cohesion of changing static patterns of this Quality. There isn't any more to her than that. The words Lila uses, the thoughts she thinks, the values she holds, are the end product of three and a half billion years of the history of the entire world. She's a kind of jungle of evolutionary patterns of value. She doesn't know how they all got there any more than any jungle knows how it came to be." [LILA] Dan comments: This is an excellent synopsis of the framework of the MOQ. Lila (a fictional character portraying an "every-person") is a collection of four static patterns of value along with undefined Dynamic Quality. She doesn't possess this Quality (which I use as synonymous with static quality/Dynamic Quality), rather she is possessed by "it". She is the end result of 3.5 billion years (give or take) of evolutionary history. She doesn't understand how these evolutionary patterns came into being, she just knows they are there. Here is another quote: "The theory had arrived in his mind several months ago with the statement, "All life is a migration of static patterns of quality toward Dynamic Quality." It had been boiling around in his mind ever since. "In traditional, substance-centered metaphysics, life isn't evolving toward anything. Life's just an extension of the properties of atoms, nothing more. It has to be that because atoms and varying forms of energy are all there is. But in the Metaphysics of Quality, what is evolving isn't patterns of atoms. What's evolving is static patterns of value, and while that doesn't change the data of evolution it completely up-ends the interpretation that can be given to evolution." [LILA] Dan comments: In the MOQ, life is evolving toward Dynamic Quality. Life isn't composed of atoms, as it is in a materialistic metaphysics. It is composed of patterns of value. Within the MOQ, all we know is composed of patterns of value evolving towards Dynamic Quality. Here's yet another quote: "A similar analysis could be made with other physical laws such as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and it seemed to Phaedrus that if one gathered together enough of these deliberate violations of the laws of the universe and formed a generalization from them, a quite different theory of evolution could be inferred. If life is to be explained on the basis of physical laws, then the overwhelming evidence that life deliberately works around these laws cannot be ignored. The reason atoms become chemistry professors has got to be that something in nature does not like laws of chemical equilibrium or the law of gravity or the laws of thermodynamics or any other law that restricts the molecules' freedom. They only go along with laws of any kind because they have to, preferring an existence that does not follow any laws whatsoever. "This would explain why patterns of life do not change solely in accord with causative "mechanisms" or "programs" or blind operations of physical laws. They do not just change valuelessly. They change in ways that evade, override and circumvent these laws. The patterns of life are constantly evolving in response to something "better" than that which these laws have to offer." [LILA] Dan comments: Here, RMP states that quite a different theory of evolution could be inferred by taking into account the deliberate violation of laws, since life tends to work around these laws. There are no mechanisms causing evolution yet static patterns do not evolve valuelessly. They evolve in response to Dynamic Quality, something "better". >Mark: > My intention is to broaden the understanding of MoQ, which is > certainly possible with communication made available by the Internet. Dan: Then I would suggest that you need to understand what it is you wish to broaden. You don't. Mark: > This is a room for discussion and creating understanding. It is not a > classroom where dogma is taught. If you have something intelligent to > say about evolution, then please present it. Dan: Again, READ THE BOOK!!!! Mark: That is the purpose of > this thread as I understand it. > > Dan, my question to you is: What do you mean by evolutionary history? > Biological evolutionary forces point to the self assembly of > organisms, and their ability to mutate. The other side of the > equation is the culling process which allows some to persist and > others not. Dan: Pretty simplistic. Why mutate at all? What is the point? Mark: If this is applied in an MoQ perspective, this would > indicate that the levels self-assemble through some kind of primary > force, and then Quality does the selection. Is this what you mean? Dan: Well, maybe in some sense. But Quality isn't actually doing the selecting. Frankly, your statements do not make a lot of sense. Mark: > You bring in social and intellectual evolutionary forces which have > shaping intention, of what I am not quite sure. Are these forces the > same as the biological ones? Dan: No, of course not. Again, if you read LILA you will understand this better. That is why we are here. To discuss LILA. Mark: Is the selection process again one of > Quality which then allows some to persist? Dan: No this just isn't right at all. Mark: If this is the case, then > you create a dichotomy between Quality, and static quality, which I do > not think is appropriate. If instead the dichotomy is between dynamic > quality and static quality as two independently operating entities, I > also do not think this fits with MoQ. Any elucidation of this on your > part is more than welcome, if you wish. Dan: We need both Dynamic Quality AND static quality. They are the fundamental split in the framework of the MOQ. Yet they do not operate independently in the way you seem to think. Dynamic Quality and static quality are not a dichotomy. The former is undefined. It comes before intellectualization, definition. It is the leading edge of experience. Static quality is the fallout, if you will. >> >> Dan: >> Again, this is silly. If you don't know the answers to your questions, >> you NEED TO READ THE BOOK. Period. I haven't the time to write page >> after page explaining the MOQ when it has already been more than >> adequately explained by Robert Pirsig in LILA. >> > [Mark] > Then why are we discussing things, if everything is already written? Dan: To give us a starting point! This is a given, Mark. Also, it is one of the requirements for joining the group. Mark: > Your use of the term evolution seems a bit destructive of MoQ in its > implications for reasons I have already presented. If you care not to > provide reasons why you do this, then that is fine. Why do you > participate if everything is already explained for you? Are you on > some kind of mission of conversion? Dan: I am on no mission. I am not a teacher. I am participating here to discuss the MOQ with others in an intelligent fashion. My use of the term evolution is in keeping with the framework of the MOQ as far as I can see. If it is not, you have failing to say why. All you've done is to present the standard definition and state we here do not understand it. > >> Dan: >> >> Right. We are idiots and you are so intelligent and above it all. >> Please. Get with the program, dude. READ THE BOOK! >> > > [Mark] > I am not pointing to your intelligence, I am providing my > interpretation of your actions. There is a strategy to vilify and > condemn those who do not subscribe to your program. Dan: No, not at all. I have engaged Ham on several occasions in order to deepen our mutual understanding. And Ham doesn't subscribe to the MOQ as far as I can see. Yet you claim you do. But your words make a mess of it, as if you do not understand the basics. At least Ham is honest about why he is here. You are not. Mark: This is not > uncommon and is used in politics all the time. Perhaps we can rise > above that, and discuss the issues which are important to MoQ. I > fully understand if you do not want to address my concerns, but your > emotional attitude lacks quality. It reminds me of friends who insist > I read the bible yet again. This is a philosophy forum, not to be > used to push one's own belief onto someone else by sheer will. I do > not believe you are marching lock-step with Pirsig, and are perhaps > adulterating his prose. As such, you are no spokesperson for MoQ. > But you probably already know that. Dan: Then show me how, Mark. Instead of whining and belly-aching, show me how I am wrong. Unlike you, I am not pushing my own belief here. I am doing my best to present the MOQ in the clearest way I can. That starts with reading LILA and other subsequent works. Until you've fashioned a base upon which to build knowledge, you are not going to understand anything. You should know that, as a scientist. Right? Dan 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/md/archives.html
