After reading this i will have to reconcider all previous models. Carefull with the herbs, tuukka
Adrie 2016-07-13 23:54 GMT+02:00 Tuukka Virtaperko <m...@tuukkavirtaperko.net>: > All, > I'm back, and I have results to offer you. Today I participated to a cocoa > ceremony. During the ceremony we went to a pier where a woman played the > guitar and we sang. At that moment I realized the guitar is an inorganic > pattern whose value is the same as the value of the calming and beautiful > song. But when the woman stopped playing the guitar ceased to have this > value. > > An inorganic pattern has instrumental value when a biological pattern uses > it to actualize a choice it has made. Obviously, this doesn't mean the > guitar should be discarded after the song is over. Forgetting the guitar on > the pier and and thus exposing it to the elements would've been a bad > choice. But as far as we are concerned of quality, the guitar inherently > has none. The reason for bringing it back in and taking care of it lies in > the value of songs we'll play in the future, but preparing for the future > this way is an intellectual pattern. It doesn't mean the guitar would > inherently have quality. > > Biological patterns accumulate value according to the choices they make. > This is because biological patterns may have volition, which makes it > possible to attribute the value of a choice to the pattern that made the > choice. This value is inherent to the biological pattern in the sense that > it stays with the biological pattern even after the choice has already been > made. > > Social patterns can be modeled as the power set of biological patterns. > Suppose we have persons A, B and C, which compose the set {A,B,C}. The > power set of this set is {{A,B,C},{A,B},{B,C},{A,C},{A},{B},{C},{}}. In > other words, the power set of a set includes all subsets of that set (and, > technically, the empty set {}). Each subset of the power set that has more > than one member is a social pattern whose value is the sum of the value of > its members. Social patterns, too, could be said to have volition but this > volition manifests via biological patterns. > > Whenever a biological pattern makes a choice, the justification of that > choice accumulates the same value as what is the value of that choice to > all that are affected by it. This justification is an intellectual pattern. > > The merit of this model is that it provides a clear answer to a question > Pirsig answered only vaguely and with some difficulty and uncertainty in > his letter to Paul Turner. That letter is, first and foremost, about > defining the intellectual level. Pirsig writes that although the ancient > Egyptians had intellect, their culture was not an intellectual one. This > can be expressed more analytically as follows. > > The justification of any choice made by a biological pattern is an > intellectual pattern in the sense that it accumulates value as the > biological pattern makes said choice. That is to say, any such > justification is intellectual with regards to how it accumulates value. But > we can say that a pattern that is intellectual with regards to value > accumulation is anyhow metaphysically biological if it only takes > biological values into account. If it only takes social values, at most, > into account, it is metaphysically a social pattern. These are *improper* > intellectual patterns. A *proper* intellectual pattern takes intellectual > values into account. It can do so by including statements about other > intellectual patterns that are either proper or improper. > > The difference between proper and improper intellectual patterns manifests > via the abstract symbol manipulation Pirsig mentions in his letter. Let's > suppose two hungry people, Steve and Jane, and a banana. Steve and Jane are > biological patterns and if they only take their biological values into > consideration it would, simplistically, mean that each one of them thinks: > "I should get the banana" in which "I" is a biological pattern. Therefore > this intellectual pattern would be an improper one. > > Friends of Steve would want Steve to get the banana whereas friends of > Jane would want Jane to get it, but this would only take social values into > account. Therefore such judgements made by friends are also improper > intellectual patterns. > > A proper intellectual pattern in this situation could be something like: > "The one who is hungrier should get the banana". In this pattern, "the one > who is hungrier" is neither a biological nor a social pattern. It's a > variable, as the hungrier one could as well be Steve or Jane. This is why > it makes the justification properly intellectual. And variables are denoted > by abstract symbols. > > When we define the model like this, the social level necessarily > accumulates more value than the biological level, and the intellectual > level (including both proper and improper intellectual patterns) > necessarily accumulates more value than the social level, just like Pirsig > would have it. To be sure, Pirsig would probably say that the higher levels > "have" more value, not that they "accumulate" more value, but this model > anyhow explains what kind of a process leads to such an outcome. > > This model does not verify the hypothesis that *any* higher-level pattern > is more valuable than *any* lower-level pattern. It's not clear to me > whether Pirsig thinks this way, but I got the impression that he might. I > don't think this is a tenable assumption. Let's suppose a medical study, > according to which a certain drug is safe with regards to certain risks, > but the drug has some other very harmful side-effect the study did not take > into account. If the drug is deemed safe because of such a study, the > assumption of its safety is an intellectual pattern, but the choice of > making the drug available for consumers is not valuable but has a negative > value. > > In his letter Pirsig also mentions that the argument that the Metaphysics > of Quality is not an intellectual formulation is not clear to him. Within > the model I have presented, the Metaphysics of Quality can be used as > justification for making a choice and is in this sense an intellectual > pattern among others. > > Regards, > Tuk > 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 > -- parser 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