[Case] The concept of relationship is inherently dynamic. There can be no relationships between purely static entities. A relationship demands a response change. Just look at how you have stated it. Stasis is static. It is entropy. Chaos is dynamic. It is change and energy. If you put stasis on one end and chaos on the other the possibilities are endless. Mark 30-01-07: Hi Case, This is a broad statement with no supporting argument. I shall provide you with an argument you sloppy thinker you: I've employed the ZMM, 'stellar system' metaphor. More fundamentally, this metaphor is a radial motion metaphor. According to this metaphor sq-sq relationships may slow down in their orbits and become static, as when a motorcycle wheel stops spinning - the edge is motionless relative to its centre.
07-01-30: Case: Yo' Mark! Sorry, I thought my statement was a pretty specific, but let me offer up some more sloppy thinking. In your metaphor the cycle wheel is a Newtonian system. The wheel can spin backward and forward in time without consequence. Newtonian time is reversible. That's what makes it a "classical theory". Thermodynamics was the first non-classical theory because in it, time is not reversible. In it, everything in the universe moves from a state of order to a state of disorder. All energy/matter dissolves into heat someday. First stated in the 1850s, this depressing bit of news predates Relativity and Quantum mechanics. It predates even Darwin and still it stands. --------------------------------------- Mark 30-01-07: As for the metaphor you employ here: It's a Thermodynamic metaphor. Relationships at absolute zero lose identity (according to experiments in quantum states) so the Thermodynamic relationship is a poor relational metaphor to employ. Entropy is a measure of thermodynamic dispersal, so terms such as energy and chaos are inappropriate. 07-01-30: Case: The Thermodynamic metaphor is utterly precise. As a statement of math and physics the metaphor of Thermodynamics is so exact as to be called a set of laws. The Metaphysics of Quality shares the terms and concepts used to describe these laws. But you think this is inappropriate metaphor? You think Newton is more apt? --------------------------------------- [Case] Coherence is more of an assessment of a relationship's spot on the stasis chaos continuum. It's the probability of stability. Coherent relationships hang together at least enough to be recognized as such. More than anything, coherence is a measure of relative stasis. Mark 30-01-07: If this is a symmetrical position, then It may be stated with equal force that coherence is a measure of relative Dynamism. However, it isn't symmetrical, because chaos is not static. 07-01-30: Case: As a measure of stability coherence incorporates the ratio of static to dynamic. It is a statement about both. Its asymmetry comes from the dissipation of the dynamic. --------------------------------------- Mark 30-01-07: You see, the important features of coherence are ordered relationships involving unity. This flies in the face of entropy as may be seen in biological systems. 07-01-30: Case: In what sense do biological systems fly in the face of entropy? --------------------------------------- Case: I am arguing for a Quality centered model orbited by relationships. Relationships, experiences and events all have static and dynamic properties both of which can often be specified. Each event is an expression of the Quality of tension between the static and the dynamic. Mark 30-01-07: You are entitled to your opinion. But i think i am entitled to ask you for a clear argument and statement for your position, and i'm still waiting for one. 07-01-30: Case: Perhaps you are right; I need some help. Here comes some from Andrew Sneddon's thesis posted on Ant's site: "The world is made up of systems which are in contact with their environments. These systems exchange energy with the environment. A stable system--one that is not suffering dramatic change- - is said to be at equilibrium. Once upon a time, it was thought that equilibrium was the rule and disorder the exception. Prigogine thinks the reverse is true, and shows how change actually produces order." Later he adds: "Prigogine, however, sounds like Pirsig in his discussion of the movement from order to disorder. Pirsig divides Quality into Dynamic and static quality--static quality is Dynamic Quality frozen, seized upon and used - - as a platform for further development. In other words, Pirsig's primary division into the world is into a process that produces order from an undifferentiated state." - Andrew Sneddon, 1995 - http://www.robertpirsig.org/SneddonThesis.htm --------------------------------------- [Case] To say that DQ is undefined either adds a second undefined term to the MoQ or throws Quality out of its own metaphysics. Beyond that it cuts the MoQ off from the wealth of information represented by fluid dynamics and nonlinear dynamics where the concepts of static and dynamic naturally transpose. Mark 30-01-07: 1. You don't half bang on about this Quality/DQ bit don't you? If the undefined is so, then any term applied to it is a mistake from a mystical point of view: It doesn't matter if you use the term, Quality, DQ, or boobily boo. The moq tries to retain the mystic element by using the term DQ. 07-01-30: Case: Quality can not be defined. That is not to say that it can not be described. It can: metaphorically. We can say all sorts of things about what it is like. The terms we use determine the quality of the metaphor. It would seem that the terms "static" and "dynamic" prove central in some of the best. ---------------------------------- Mark 30-01-07: 2. Re: Fluid Dynamics. The moq isn't a Metaphysics of Fluid Dynamics. The term, 'Dynamic' is not being used with reference to a scientific discipline, although the metaphorical resonance's must be acknowledged and may even be useful. If you want us to regard FD as more fundamental to a metaphysics then may i ask what metaphysics underpins FD? If you answer: Quality, then for you DQ is definable. But this is not the moq. 07-01-30: Case: So Pirsig says that the MoQ subsumes SOM. It subsumes Logical Positivism. Here it could subsume Thermodynamics but you think it lacks sufficient metaphorical resonance? ---------------------------------- Mark 30-01-07: An engine performing at maximal efficiency may be coherent. I suggested you may be conflating (actually i said, 'confusing' which was a mistake, sorry mate) DQ with coherence incorrectly because you did not seem to be recognising the value status of coherence. DQ cannot be valued for the sake of it because then there would be no corresponding structural sq latching support - like Hippies. 07-01-30: Case: Notice that when an engine is operating at maximum efficiency it requires less energy to do its work. Less of its energy dissipates as waste heat. It get more miles per gallon. When a tennis ball is hit by the sweet spot of a tennis racquet it requires less muscular effort to propel the ball. It requires fewer heart beats to generate the effort needed to ace a serve. It is "no sweat" because there is less need to dissipate body heat. Static latching occurs when complex system reaches a state of equilibrium. The system is static by virtue of the fact that it dissipates energy at the same rate that it takes it in. If it receives less than it needs it slows down, more and it speeds up. To little or too much and the latching fails and a new state is achieved at a higher or lower level of energy exchange. Again from Sneddon: "A system that is disrupted from its history of order--due, perhaps, to some change in the environment--moves from equilibrium to a state 'far from equilibrium. Equilibrium functions as an attractor state, meaning systems move from one state of equilibrium to another--systems far from equilibrium are caught up in the process of the change. At a far from equilibrium position, a system is at a 'bifurcation' point--its future cannot be predicted from what is known about its history. It can jump to a new, higher (because more complex, and requiring more energy) state of equilibrium, or it can drop to a condition of less order, and hence less complex. In other words, the choice for the system is one between order and chaos." Notice that more energy tends to mean more complexity. The more dynamic a system becomes the more ways energy can be transformed before it dissipates as heat. In a plant sunlight is converted to sugar, stored as chemical energy and released into other chemical transformations. It gets converted to electrical energy and back into chemical energy and on and on through the life cycle of the plant. Animals require the intake of more energy than plants but can engage in more complex and dynamic relationships. But somehow I suspect this all revolves around this idea of dynamic evolution heading toward "betterness." Letting entropy in the door rather takes some of the Zing out of that doesn't it? What a bummer man! First there was math and now heat death. Who put Murphy in charge? I think I forgot my mantra again, dude. This is turning into a Bad Trip. Just keep in mind: In the MoQ "Bad" is also a noun. 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.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
