[MD] Quantum computing

[Magnus Berg]

Hi Bo

>> I don't think we can say that "carbon itself remains inorganic"
>> because carbon has biological value for carbon based life forms....
> 
> This reveals the difference between the level's static (limited) 
> view and MOQ's meta-view. From the levels' p.o.v. everything is 
> own value. Biology's blindness to being a static level is 
> "forgivable", but intellect's claim that everything is inellect is what 
> hinders the MOQ to tear loose. 

I agree that from each level's point of view, everything it sees is only of its 
own level. It follows from the quality event being an event between two patterns 
of the same level. Why would the intellectual level be any different?

Claiming that the MoQ is something else than an intellectual pattern seems 
pretty far fetched to me. In doing that, I think you're weakening the other 
definitions of the MoQ. However, I'm beginning to understand that my definitions 
of the MoQ are far more formal than any other's, so perhaps that's not a problem 
to you, but it is to me.

>> Fixed repertoire? Not if you want to map SOM things to levels. Also, I
>> can agree to some extent that SOM is an intellectual pattern. And even
>> if it's a very large and complex set of patterns, it doesn't fill up
>> the intellectual level by even a fraction. So to say that SOM *is* the
>> whole intellectual level is a pretty big leap. I would say that the
>> MoQ is also an intellectual pattern. It's an idea, an abstract
>> description of something else.
> 
> If so the pre-historic and early historic myths were intellectual 
> patterns? Is that so?

Yes, I've never understood this talk about old myths/stories/sayings *not* being 
intellectual patterns.

First of all, who are we to judge how these myths came to be? Some may of course 
have social backgrounds and describe some kind of social value, but some may 
very well have intellectual roots but disguised as a myth to be accepted, just 
as Pirsig chose to write Lila as a novel. To base a level definition on such a 
loose hunch has very low value to me and makes it impossible to actually *use* 
that level definition for anything useful. It seems to me that the sole purpose 
of such a loose definition of the intellectual level is for humans to stay well 
clear of "animals", which makes it look like anthropism.

Second, I still think the intellectual level is about representing something 
else (which actually makes the above paragraph pointless). And I don't mean what 
has been said in this thread recently such as "thinking about thinking" etc. But 
simply:

"If something represents something else via a language, then it is an 
intellectual pattern."

After reading Pirsig's letter to Paul Turner, I find it a bit difficult to see 
where he stands on this. First he writes:

""Intellect" can then be defined very loosely as the level of independently 
manipulable signs."

Which is pretty close to what I mean, but then he writes:

"There has been a tendency to extend the meaning of "social" down into the 
biological with the assertion that, for example, ants are social, but I have 
argued that this extends the meaning to a point where it is useless for 
classification. I said that even atoms can be called societies of electrons and 
protons. And since everything is thus social, why even have the word? I think 
the same happens to the term, "intellectual," when one extends it much before 
the Ancient Greeks.* If one extends the term intellectual to include primitive 
cultures just because they are thinking about things, why stop there? How about 
chimpanzees? Don't they think? How about earthworms? Don't they make conscious 
decisions? How about bacteria responding to light and darkness? How about 
chemicals responding to light and darkness? Our intellectual level is broadening 
to a point where it is losing all its meaning."

But here, I think he makes the same mistake most do when trying to map *things* 
to the MoQ levels. For example, in: "I said that even atoms can be called 
societies of electrons and protons. And since everything is thus social, why 
even have the word?" he assumes that the social bond that holds electrons and 
protons together implies that a Martian rock is social. Just because a thing is 
made out of other smaller things, it doesn't mean the new thing can be a part of 
quality events of all the types of the smaller things it's made of.

After a while he concludes: "Our intellectual level is broadening to a point 
where it is losing all its meaning.". Here, his use of the term "broadening" 
implies that he thinks that if so small things as bacteria or chemicals can have 
intellectual value, it means that more or less everything also have it. His, and 
your, solution is to make the intellectual level about meta-information, i.e. 
information about information. But in doing that, you leave "information" 
hanging without classification in the MoQ. And you're not going to convince me 
that every pattern of "information about things" (as opposed to "information 
about information"), is social.

As I see it, and I think I've said this before, your version of the levels is 
only good for inductive reasoning, whereas my version is also quite fit for 
deduction.

Another thing, the inter level dependency in your MoQ seems to be rather mystic 
and not founded in science. The only thing you say about it is that intellectual 
patterns will collapse without biology, society etc. But not really why. This 
also implies that any artificial intelligence is impossible since by 
"artificial", we imply non-biological. I haven't found any more good examples 
about things that could disprove your version of the MoQ, and since intelligence 
is required, an AI is what first comes to mind. But the fact is that your MoQ is 
not ready to deal with such a thing when it arrives, and I'm completely certain 
it's a question of when, not if. It will then become the MoQ's first platypus, 
and that's exactly what the MoQ was made to avoid.


>> Everything that is an abstract
>> description of something else *is* an intellectual pattern.
> 
> The point is that the said ancient peoplee did not say "Now I'll 
> make up an abstract theory". The arrival of that attitude IS the 
> very intellectual level. When will this dawn on you and everybody 
> else?  

And I don't see the metaphysical significance of that difference. Why would such 
a pattern deserve to be placed in a whole new level? An intellectual pattern is 
a reference to something else, *that's* the big deal about the intellectual 
level, that it can refer to, i.e. *mean*, something else, regardless of what 
that something else is. The fact that the referred thing is intellectual or not 
is metaphysically (ontologically) irrelevant.

>> It's when
>> several cells wants to cooperate to form a larger "animal" that they
>> need language to cooperate in their newly founded social "society".
>> This language is later used when the animal gets too big and needs a
>> neural network to control its muscles. And when this neural network is
>> large enough, we call it a brain.
> 
> All this takes place within the biological level, it becomes 
> completely unwieldly to see biological societies. Biology is 
> SENSING. Sensing that an inorganic configuration conveys a 
> particular message - that an electromagnetic frequency is "color", 
> that an air pressure frequency is "sound"  .. etc, -  and this 
> sensing goes all the way till the social level's emotions takes 
> over.   

It's not at all unwieldly to see biological societies inside animals. It's a 
society in just the same way a city is. Several parts work together in 
symbiosis. An animal has several organs that do different things for the animal 
so that the animal can survive. A city also has lots of organs, schools, roads, 
waste disposal, city council, food stores, gas pumps, police, etc. Take away any 
of these organs and the city will get sick or even die. The social value of the 
organs of the city and the organs of a body is ontologically identical. The only 
reason you (and Pirsig) refuse to see that is that you think it goes too far 
down the size scale. But size isn't a factor in any of the level definitions, 
right? So why do you bother with it?


>> On the other hand, we don't have to get so theoretical about it. A
>> shopping list is intellectual patterns and doesn't rely on S/O
>> thinking to be understood.
> 
> Why don't you extend this argument into the absurdity that 
> anything that comes to mind is intellectual patterns?  

Sure, since it's in my mind, it *is* an intellectual pattern. Nothing absurd 
about it though.

>> And what
>> distinguishes that level from the 4th? 
> 
> Everything - MOQ included - is intellectual patterns seen from the 
> intellectual level, while intellect is a MOQ patterm seen from the 
> MOQ. 
> 
>> What more patterns of this 5th
>> level can you find?
> 
> Everything becomes Quality patterns seen from this level. 

"Quality patterns"? Wait, are you saying that since you think that intellectual 
patterns are "information about information", we must need "information about 
information about information" to discuss it?

	Magnus