And I meant that with 2 u's, btw. Just so you know. :-) On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 1:23 AM, Dan Glover <daneglo...@gmail.com> wrote: > Wow. What happened? Did that send? Guess I sorta lost my knack for > this. Anyhow, Once more with gusto... > > Hey Tukka! > > On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 1:00 AM, Dan Glover <daneglo...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Hey Tukka, >> >> On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 4:54 PM, Tuukka Virtaperko >> <m...@tuukkavirtaperko.net> wrote: >>> 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. > > Dan: > So I remember reading this speech by Leonard Cohen which you can find here: > > http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/leonardcohenhowigotmysong.htm > > And he says some thiings which might contradict the notion that a > guitar is simply an inorganic pattern in that it the guitar is > actually a living thing and I think he has a point, one that any > musician can appreciate. Anyway... > >>> >>> 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. > > Dan: > > No but see the guitar does have value! Even if I were to agree with > you, which I don't, that the guitar is only an inorganic pattern, it > is a pattern of VALUE! See what I think you are doing is mistaking a > thing as having quality instead of it the thing being 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. > > Dan: > Do you really believe biological patterns have volition? I can't see > it. Biological patterns are constrained into a specific set of > parameters which disable them, the biological patterns, from going > outside those parameters. So really the volition or choice that > biological patterns 'have' isn't that so much as being had by the > quality that both surrounds them, the biological patterns, and > permeates them, simultaneously making it seem as if free will exists, > which of course it does, but only seem to. So in essence this tends to > render your argument null and void if one follows said reasoning above > to its logical conclusion. > >>> >>> 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. > > Dan: > > Well and yes of course the MOQ is a collection of intellectual > patterns of value. What else could it be? Any argument to the contrary > is a bit ludicrous. Not that I am saying you are doing that here. I > have always thought that intellectual patterns are ideas. I know > somewhere in Lila's Child Robert Pirsig equates them, intellectual > patterns, to mind. Or maybe he is talking about the intellectual > level. Either way, since intellectual patterns as ideas are not > physical entities existing at large in the world for all to see, any > medical study, or any study, for that matter, isn't concerned so much > with the physical properties of the world as they are with the idea of > physical properties. > > So, > > Dan > > http://www.danglover.com
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