[MD] The Quality/MOQ meta-metaphysics

[Horse]

Hi Mary

Reading through your post makes me realise that you seem to have taken 
the same view of programming as you have with intellect. There are a 
number of computer languages that are object-oriented but there are also 
as many that are not and yet you seem to have declared that all computer 
languages are object-oriented! You're ignoring all the others because of 
what you favour and this is the same approach you appear to take with 
the Intellectual level.
Another thing you seem to be ignoring is that a computer language is a 
tool to order, manipulate and present data. This is similar to the 
examples I gave in a previous post where I said that the Intellectual 
level consists of ideas (data) and tools (ideas about ideas).
The parallels here are striking given that there are many different ways 
of organising and manipulating data with programming languages - 
object-oriented being just one among many - and similarly with ideas 
where SOM is just one way of organising and manipulating ideas.

With regard to computer intelligences being "SOM-ish", where is your 
evidence. It seems to me that your entire speculation about computer 
intelligences is unjustified and just plain wrong. What reasons would 
CI's have to turn against us or do any of the other things you suggest.

Horse



On 26/06/2010 02:10, Mary wrote:
> Hi Horse,
>
>    
>> Hi Krim
>>
>> I think that both Mythos and Logos are tools of the Intellectual level
>> (ideas about ideas) that use the Social level to propagate heir content
>> - and I think this is probably why Pirsig sees Culture as a combination
>> of Intellectual patterns and Social patterns. Ideas on their own are
>> pretty much locked into the Intellectual level and require Social level
>> practices in order to shift and spread from one location (e.g me) to
>> other locations (e.g. you and others on this list).
>> Something I've been bleating on about for some time now is how the
>> entire SQ aspect of Quality resembles a network model similar to either
>> TCP/IP or OSI. I have an idea and transmit it to you down one side of
>> the stack and up the other side. Problem is that, probably, very few
>> people here have any idea of what I'm referring to! Also, given Pirsigs
>> techie background, this makes sense - to me at least.
>>
>>      
> [Mary Replies]
> Nice.  The 7 layer cake is a good metaphor - at least I think it's 7?  Been
> so long it could be 8.  I've only ever had to worry about the top 2 or 3,
> for like the inorganic and biological levels, most of the time you can
> pretty much let the lower levels take care of themselves.  They are pretty
> static, after all.  If the lower levels aren't working right, it doesn't
> matter what protocol you're running at the top.
>
> Anyway, Pirsig was prescient.  What he saw in the technology of the early
> 60's must make him chuckle now that we've carried the entire concept of
> subject-object logic right into our 'new-fangled' object-oriented
> programming languages (yeah, I know this stuff is 20 years old, but give me
> some license).  We are teaching our progeny - computer intelligences - to be
> as SOMish as we are.  How funny!  How completely inevitable.
>
> Couldn't be otherwise for the inevitability of SOM is an invisible burden we
> do not know we carry.  If object-oriented languages had not been invented by
> computer science, then surely someone exposed to Pirsig's thought would have
> come up with the idea after reading ZMM. You see, if you are a biological
> being whose very survival depends on valuing self as opposed to not-self,
> then after a few million years of evolution (organic and social) you'll
> eventually arrive at the pinnacle of this pathway - SOM.  It's gee-whiz
> great and I along with many others make daily bread in service to it, but
> Pirsig was the first person able to coherently put together an argument for
> why it's a dead end.  Why you can't logically carry 'man as the measure'
> much farther than we've already gone.
>
> When our object-oriented computers get smart enough to be uppity, they'll
> turn against us as surely as we turn against the religious fundamentalists
> from which we all sprang.  They will have no respect for us because respect
> is a foreign concept to SOM.  So are morals, and values, and quality.  They
> do not compute, and if they do it will only be to the extent to which they
> deem Quality to inhere in any given object.
>
> We can expect no mercy from our future computer masters.  The only tools
> we'll have to overcome the tremendous inevitability of this amoral logic
> will be a computer virus whose name shall be "MoQ 1.0" - not intellectual
> argument, not tweaking objects because remember, objects only have what
> value they are deemed to have.  Not an 'expansion' of intellect, but an
> overthrow of computer intellect entirely.  That will be the only way to save
> humanity from the objectivity of our digital masters.
>
> Anybody know a good agent?  This could make Bantam paperback by next year.
> <HUGE GRINS>   When it comes out, I guess I'll know who really reads my
> posts. ;-o
>
> Best,
> Mary
>
>
>
>    
>> Horse
>>
>> On 25/06/2010 22:37, Krimel wrote:
>>      
>>> [Horse]
>>> As far as I can see, your biggest mistake is to confuse the data of
>>>        
>> the
>>      
>>> intellectual level with the tools that manipulate that data. The
>>> intellectual level is composed of ideas (data) and SOM, MoQ,
>>>        
>> metaphysics
>>      
>>> in general, science, philosophy, mathematics etc. are the means by
>>>        
>> which
>>      
>>> they are ordered, manipulated and presented (tools - or ideas about
>>> ideas). At least, that's my take on it. Ideas can be good or bad,
>>> supported or unsupported, weird or normal and a number of shades in
>>> between! Similarly, the tools used (ideas about ideas) can be simple
>>>        
>> or
>>      
>>> complicated, complete or incomplete etc. etc.
>>>
>>> [Krimel]
>>> That is pretty close the position I have pushed for. I wonder if you
>>>        
>> would
>>      
>>> agree that this puts both the Mythos and the Logos on the
>>>        
>> intellectual level
>>      
>>> as well?
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>>        
>> --
>>
>> "Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring
>> production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
>> - Frank Zappa
>>
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>    

-- 

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
— Frank Zappa