[MD] Windmills and Intellectual Pots

[skutvik at online.no]

Paul, Mike and moqtalk.

One simple thing has again grown into some major issue.  

On 20 Dec. Paul Turner wrote to Mike who had said:

> >There is nothing arbitrary about denying that carbon is matter.
> >Carbon is a pattern of value, i.e. it displays particular behavior in
> >particular conditions. It values bonding with itself in certain ways
> >to form graphite or diamond, or bonding with other elements to form
> >carbon dioxide etc etc. Matter, on the other hand, displays no
> >particular values. Matter doesn't display anything at all, to the
> >senses at least. Matter is merely a concept by postulation. Assuming
> >the existence of an objective substance is an attempt to explain why
> >(as described in LILA) properties hang together in a stable way.
> >These properties are what we now label as "inorganic patterns of
> >value".

Agree.

> Paul:  But that's precisely my point.  What is commonly referred to as
> matter is now referred to as inorganic patterns of value, so matter is
> not inextricably linked to the intellectual level, as Bo suggests, 

It's the mind/matter distinction which is "inextricably linked to 
intellect". Social existence surely knew water, earth, fire, air  ... 
you name it, but at that level this wasn't inert stuff but filled with 
spirits of all kind. Only with the Greeks did matter enter - as a 
principle - as did its counterpart "nous" (mind) and SOM was born 
- intellect to the MOQ!.      
  
> but
> rather, in the structure of the MOQ, it becomes redescribed as part of
> the first level of value patterns and is not assumed to be the whole
> of reality as a materialist might have it.

Had you only heeded this, instead of switching freely between 
SOM and the MOQ - in this case "matter" and "inorganic value".   

Mike went on:
> >Or, to put it more simply, carbon, as a stable pattern of value, can
> >be known empirically. Matter, on the other hand, is not empirical, in
> >the same way as causation isn't. The accusation you anticipated that
> >Bo might give, that the word "matter" is somish, would not be
> >unfounded, unless by "matter" you mean something other than
> >objective, independently-existing substance.

Exactly, "matter" (elements to them) is a principle counterpoised 
by the "mind" principle (nous to them) to the early Greek thinkers, 
something that evolved into the full-fledged SOM .. in turn 
becoming  MOQ's intellectual level.

> Paul:  I gave my definition of matter in the first post in which I
> made this argument.  Here it is again:  Something that has mass and
> exists as a solid, liquid, gas, or plasma.  By this definition, do you
> still deny that carbon is matter?

Carbon is matter at the intellectual level, but an inorganic pattern 
at the MOQ "level".  

> Thanks for a good reply, Mike.

Likewise.

Bo