[MD] Quantum computing

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Magnus!

4 Mar. you wrote:

> 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?

I take this to be an agreement. Intellect is as blind to the overall 
Q-context as the rest of the static range, and refuses that 
anything can be non-intellect or non-S/O. The MOQ included.  
 
> 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.

I take this too to be agreement.

Bo before: 
> > If so the pre-historic and early historic myths were intellectual
> > patterns? Is that so?

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

As we agree about, from intellect seen all is intellect, and we may 
cast our imagination back to a pre-intellect LEVEL time when all 
was social. And that age's various world views can consequently 
NOT be called "intellectual". Get it?  

> 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.

How could myths have intellectual roots if the social  level had 
not yet been transcended? Can you imagine some stone age 
skeptic lurking in the cave murmuring "All this nonsense about 
gods and goddesses must have an objective explanation"? I think 
yours is the intelligence= intellect fallacy that haunts this site.   

> 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.

What loose hunch do I base intellect on and what purpose is it to 
keep "humans clear of animals"? The human body is a mammal 
organism- no better no worse - but according to the MOQ the 
humans - as intellect-bearers - are two levels above biology. If 
you don't buy THAT part of the the MOQ why bother? 

> 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:

Make up your mind  ;-)

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

Well, if so language=intellectual level and it rushes back to 
around the Neanderthal and the social level becomes some tiny 
sliver between biology and intellect. Good Grief!   


> 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.

You misunderstand. Pirsig mocks the notion that atoms are 
"societies" and does NOT claim that what holds rocks together 
are social bonds. If I remember correctly it was YOU who saw 
societies everywhere.  

> 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.

"His and your solution ..." Wish it was so, however his feet-
dragging yet crucial admission is this.

    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.  

Pirsig could not bring himself to say outright what's plain, namely 
that the 4th. level emerged as described in ZMM. But anyway, 
the Greeks were central as he sees it and that would have been 
OK, but he saw  that this led to the SOL and added the thing 
about the allegedly non-S/O Oriental intellect.  

But enough. The rest the post will have to wait.

Bo