John, On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 1:13 PM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote: > Dan, > > you commented: > > At the auto dealership where I maintain one of my accounts I often >> talk with one of the sales people who is also a drummer and a singer >> in a rock and roll band. He's in his early fifties and been doing his >> music since he was a teenager. He knows I scribble a bit and so we >> talk art from time to time. Lately he's been writing and recording >> original music. >> >> Today he related how he's been setting up video equipment to record >> himself while he sings. And you know what, he says... I suck. >> >> I can tell by his expression that I'm expected to laugh and so I do >> even though I also know he is being honest with his assessment of his >> skills. He goes on to say how he's been taking videos of himself for a >> couple months now, watching them, and trying to improve his technique. >> It doesn't do any good. He still sucks. >> >> > J: You might be making a different point here Dan but that's a very > interesting topic you raise. Suck compared to what? His self-image of > course, but a video capture isn't a self image its a technological > capture. But since most of our information intake these days is > interesting people on video, and boring reality all around us, our lives > and our self-image suffers constantly. "The self" isn't an absolute > thing but it's a relation. IN a different reality there are different > selves formed. In a wolrd of virtual reality, we now have virtual selves. > A man's voice and art do not "suck" or anything when he is not comparing > and competing.
D: >From what I gathered, he was talking about quality. He explained that when he sings it sounds completely different than when he watches the video and hears himself. That seems right. We have to understand that the self image is always going to be different than the image people see of us. There is no 'objective' self. What we see and hear is a conglomeration of our personal history coming to bear upon the moment. Even in watching a video we all see and hear something different. Still, I imagine he's a lot like me. In order to gauge my writing I often compare my stuff to other writers. I've been doing this long enough that I blow most amateurs out of the water. And I don't mean that in an egotistical way. It's just that after writing a few million words my skills have evolved beyond what they once were. On the other hand, when I read some of the greats I can see where my skills are lacking. In the same fashion, when my friend says he sucks I suspect he's good enough that when he sees and listens to amateurs like himself they cannot compete with his style but when he compares his music with professional singer-songwriters, he becomes aware of his limitations. > > Dan: > > I told him my writing sucks too. We all have self doubts. I'm pretty >> sure anyone who has ever created anything new and unique suffers from >> the same malady. I also think it helps to talk to others who've >> experienced the highs and the lows of being out there on the cutting >> edge. It's easy to follow a trail blazed by others. It's hard to cut a >> path of your own. >> >> > John: I agree. Most great schools of art were exactly that - schools. > Groups of individuals. D: Hmmm. I tend to disagree. A school may appear to be a group of individuals but the value that holds that school together is rooted in culture. Remember how Robert Pirsig describes the university in ZMM? > > > Dan: > > >> It is my opinion that if a person is working upon creating something >> new they must do it with zeal, not just when they feel like it. If you >> are the type of person who is compelled to do something, then you >> don't need a kick in the pants. But if you are playing around the >> edges, working when you feel like it and saying the hell with it when >> you don't, then you need that boot up your butt. >> > > John: ... that's a tricky one for me. "When I feel like it" is an > important issue to me. But honestly, I have a comfortable writing routine > in the mornings when nobody is home. When Lu is home, I can't write. Even > if she says she doesn't mind, I can't do it. I feel the psychic weight of > all the things that need to be done, all the chores that accumulate and I > know there are writers who can write anywhere and under any kind of > distractions but god help me, it ain't me. Dan: I remember reading an interview where Robert Pirsig tells how he rented a room in a flop house where he went to write from midnight until 6am every day. I think we all need a kind of routine like that. For me, it's working at night from 10pm till 6am. So whatever works, works. Chores? What are chores? > > Dan: > > >> >> Not many people will do that for you. They'd rather see you fail. I'd >> like to read that book of yours, John. >> >> > J: I've been thinking of serializing it. It's a very strange thing to me > how hard it is to finish. How the task grows with the doing, the more I > write, the more there is to write about. Unlike digging a hole are > rebuilding a carb (another thing on my to-do list btw :-) D: An old trick of mine is to always start with the ending and then go back and begin the story as close to that as possible. > > >>[John] >> > When I think of the delimiter between the organic and the inorganic, I >> > think of choice. An amoeba makes rudimentary reactions that express >> > avoidance of sulphuric acid but inorganic crystals have no choice. This >> is >> > just a subjective observation but by seeing things from an MoQ >> perspective, >> > it seems to me that all the levels can be seen as escalating levels of >> > available choice. Another way of saying that is escalating levels of >> > self-ness as any organic "thing" is a self-contained organism 0 a whole >> > that is non-existent as a simple addition of parts. The whole is only a >> > whole when it's constituent parts are organized into a certain structure >> > that makes a whole, and replicates. Life replicates while inorganic >> matter >> > just degrades to lower levels of being, energy wise. Organic patters >> seem >> > to defy the rules of entropy in some ways. >> >> Dan: >> I've been doing a bit of research of my own for one of my new projects >> that has to do with cowboys and Indians but that is beside the point. >> The Apache believe they and the land were created together. > > > John: Much like the Christians. But people don't like to be reminded of > their muddy genesis. D: I was under the impression that the Christians are relative newcomers to all this. Too, if I remember my bible, god created the heavens and the earth well before he saw the need for human beings, right? > > Dan: > > >> Now, >> before you go and get all scientific on me and tell me that is >> impossible... the land is billions of years old while the Apache >> haven't been here but a few thousand years... what they are saying >> isn't to be taken literally but rather as a bit of imagery. >> > > John: I assure you Dan, I'm the last guy in the world to go all scientific > any anybody. It is myth and story that make people what they are. Not > disconnected "facts". D: Well said. > > Dan: > > >> What the Apache are saying is that they are in no way separate and >> apart from their environment. I think that has a lot to do with what >> the MOQ is saying too. We are the patterns that make up what we think >> of as our lives. We are not a separate 'self' standing apart from the >> dirt upon which we walk and the air which we breathe. When we start >> talking 'the whole' we cannot stop at the boundary of skin... we must >> come to realize we encompass the universe. >> >> > John: Yes. I've mentioned it a lot, over on the LS, I came to the MoQ > from a jr. college teacher, George Sessions, who showed me that any "value" > that man applied to Nature was invalid because humanity was OF Nature and > therefore we derive all value from it. It was in his class that I was > assigned ZAMM and met Pirsig. I realized then that the trees were an > aspect of my body - they breathed out what my lungs take in. They could be > thought of as extended cilia, if we'd been born into a more enlightened > paradigm. Instead they are economically valued, and only in their > destruction. D: You're lucky to have a mentor like that. > > Dan: > > >> What does this mean in terms of defining inorganic patterns and >> biological patterns? We must look to values, not to such things as >> self-contained objects. The value provided by the DNA molecule defines >> the limit between life and inorganic matter. >> >> > John: Maybe its just my way of prefering to look at the levels, but I see > things top-down, not bottom - up. New intellectual ideas inspire social > changes - Social organizations protect and increase babies and babies poop > out shit. It's top down all the way! It seems to me that if it's immoral > for a lower level to dominate a higher, its equally immoral for higher to > NOT dominate (creatively control) a lower. But I realize most people who > look at the levels like to do it mechanistically inorganic stuff just > happens to combine into dna, life clumps into social organizations and > eventually one of those societies gets a good idea. I can see that in some > ways, they go both ways. But at the inorganic/organic intterface, I see > the value of life creating dna molecules rather than dna molecules creating > life. D: Yes that seems right. > > > > > >> > >> > >> > J-A >> > >> > >> >> Dan and David put in some interesting read whether DNA was the most >> >> important or if a speculative and unexperienced XNA should be included. >> >> DNA and molecules are, however, inorganic patterns and would not >> qualify to >> >> be included in a definition of the difference between the inorganic >> level >> >> and the organic level. >> >> Dan: >> It wasn't my intention to add speculative XNA to the MOQ. I was using >> that as a test subject to sort through the known and the unknown and >> how new discoveries are made. >> >> Be that as it may, I sense another misunderstanding brewing here. DNA >> is a molecule and yes it is inorganic BUT according to the MOQ, the >> biological level makes use of the inorganic level for its own purpose. >> Not including DNA in a definition of life would be like saying since >> human beings are made of molecules they cannot be defined as alive. >> >> > John: That the biological (life) value creates (makes use of) the > inorganic is my point exactly. > I think we must be very close then, in our views. D: I think that is pretty much in accord with the MOQ. > > > > > >> > J-A: >> > >> > >> >> Andre had a good suggestion about self-reproduction as a distinctive >> >> delimiter between inorganic and organic patterns which I supported. I >> wrote >> >> that the time-concept is crucial for a self-reproducing pattern as >> >> succesion and organic evolution by mutations and so on would be >> impossible >> >> without a working time concept. >> >> >> >> >> > J: >> > >> > I agree with Andre but repeat the key here to "self-reproduction" _is_ >> the >> > "self". That self that is reproduced is the defining aspect of life. >> Life >> > = Self. >> >> Dan: >> I think if you dropped the 'self' you might find things easier to >> understand, at least according to the MOQ. >> >> >> > John: Well here I was using the term self in a very broad way. A better > word might be "identity" Life is tied up with an identity, as formed in > time. > But I think the broad understanding of MD ought to be corrected on to the > meaning and importance of the self. Just because something isn't > fundamental, doesn't mean it's non-existent. D: The MOQ says there is no self independent of the patterns. That isn't the same as saying the self is non-existent. > > > > > >> > >> > J-A: >> > >> > >> >> Another specific difference is that chemical reactions are mostly >> ignited >> >> by outer circumstances. Of course we have all representatives for the >> >> periodic table ignited by Big Bang but most of all these atoms are so >> >> stable that time and age is not an actual issue for them. The inorganic >> >> level is also good at describing the time as the millions of >> >> two-dimensional, expanding and diminishing rings, that appear on a >> water >> >> surface when its raining. Time is also showing as three-dimensional >> bubbles >> >> of sound waves in the air. Radiowaves from electronic devices. Bubbles >> of >> >> intensive force from explosions is another example. But it is still >> events >> >> and patterns at the inorganic level. >> >> Dan: >> When we see the world, we are not seeing the real world. > > > > John: Reality is another term that gets abused. Experience is the only > reality we'll ever need, so worrying about a bigger reality now is > unpragmatical. > > Dan: > > We are >> experiencing the world through the filter of our biological senses as >> well as the filter of our cultural mores. If we assume the universe is >> a mathematical model, for example, we will make the data fit the >> theory by focusing upon what we know and ignoring what we don't know. >> >> You assume there was a Big Bang which created the universe because you >> have been told it is so. The creationist assumes god created the >> universe because they were told it is so. Both are conjectures that >> cannot be proved. Still, there are high quality ideas and there are >> low quality ideas and part of the reason we are here, perhaps, is to >> sort through them. >> >> > AMEN. > > Lu and I are going away for a few days for her birthday. I've got to go > get ready. I'm gonna leave off here while I'm feeling good. Dan: That sounds wonderful! Happy birthday to Lu! > > Thanks Dan, You're welcome, John. Thank you too. Dan http://www.danglover.com 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
