[MD] Crystallising Chaos.

[Squonkonguitar at aol.com]

Mark: Hello Case.
Yes, But i avoided cosmology by suggesting this was  cosmogony.
I've already committed myself to the view that the Cosmos is  value.

[Case]
In many respects I think Pirsig did a disservice by  using the term Value.
The term is ambiguous at best. The emphasis gets places  on the "qualitative"
aspects of the term. If you read Pirsig and force  yourself to think about
the term in its "quantitative" sense you will see new  meanings emerge.
Mathematicians also see a world of values. I thought Pirsig  was trying to
reconcile the world views of the moralist and the  mathematician; not justify
the former.
 
Mark: Hello Case.
The quantitative values mathematicians hold in their experience are  patterns 
of static intellectual quality which form relationships that are  aesthetic.
The pattern 6 does not stand alone for the mathematician; 6 is a series of  
aesthetic relationships: 2 x 3, 12/2, a geometric shape with internal angles of 
 360/6 degrees, the square root of 36, 2/3 of 9, one tenth of 60, the number 
of  equilateral triangles in a hexagon, a component in any variety of 
geometric  progressions, etc...
Numbers are moral only in their relationships, and no wonder a 90 degree  
triangle is called a, 'right' triangle because a wall built at that angle to the  
ground is a good wall; one could think of a wall like that having attained a, 
 'sweet spot?'

Mark: In the Metaphysics of Quality there's the morality  called the "laws of 
nature," by which inorganic patterns triumph over chaos...'  (Lila. ch.  13)
This made me think about the nature of GOFC.
I  thought that recent physics had developed the notion that there are   
something like 32 fields which existed before the Big bang, and by smashing  
particles together today physicists, 'excite' these fields and deduce their  
properties and relationships?
It's the fields they are interested in, not the  particles - the particles  
are a by product.
I don't know where that  leaves GOFC?
Maybe we are going to be told the fields are  eternal?

[Case]
I have heard about infinite universes and multiverse  but nothing about 32
fields... Got some references for that?
 
Mark: I shall look it up and get back to you. I know where i heard it and  
can get back to it.

[Case]
I snipped the formulas because I really  don't know what they mean any more.
Are we using symbols like > to mean  points toward or greater than. Does /
mean alternative formulation like  he/she or divided by?
 
Mark: Sorry. > was meant to mean 'the next bit following on from' and /  is 
just a split as in DQ/sq split.

Case: Over all though when you say:  

"The only way i could think of getting away with this was to describe  chaos
as an unstructured relationship between sq simples."

You are  basically destroying GOFC because as soon as you have objects or any
sort of  relationship structured or otherwise degrees of freedom, pure
randomness is  lost. Why would you elected to a use GOFC when it can be shown
not to exist  and when nonlinear dynamics works so much better?
 
Mark: Fair enough.
As you say, the term value is, 'Ambiguous' so if we say, 'values which do  
not value structure' we've said enough?
This may even be a formal definition of chaos itself?
Therefore, relationships between,'values which do not value structure'  
offers the possibility of structure out of non-structure?
Neat?
Non-linear dynamics, as far as i understand it, suggest there are as  yet 
unacknowledged structures at work.

Mark: I can only appeal to  evolution Case.
The MoQ is all about value evolution. The earliest values are  tiny little
dharmas of moral order which have evolved into huge dharmas of  higher moral 
codes.
In other words, we have replaced Substance with moral  order.
There appears to be an arrow of moral evolution.

[Case]
I  problem I see with this is your metaphor of an arrow of moral evolution.
It  is pointed at something and aimed toward it. I don't think evolution, of
any  kind, acts like that. Evolution to me implies a path, winding and
twisting,  branching, end ending. In short it takes the path of least
resistance. It is  that lightening bolt, river systems, tree form I described
earlier. I would  call this the edge of chaos or The Way.
 
Mark: You know how it is Case?
In promoting a new paradigm it can be useful to highjack previous metaphors  
and use them for one's own ends?
The arrow of moral evolution is stolen straight from the arrow of time or  
thermodynamics.
I agree that the path of least resistance is important. The way i look at  it 
is this: It's a question of balancing things up such that control becomes as  
light as a feather.
DQ seems to get in on the act when massive forces are balanced in such a  way 
as to cancel each other, and then the slightest touch cannot only move them  
both, but do so with elegance and grace as if they were not there at all.
In this way huge forces are used to paint delicate images.
Make any sense?
Love,
Mark