[MD] Discrete & Dependent

[Magnus Berg]

Hi Bo

>> * What type of pattern is the observed data of a falling stone?
> 
> The observation of a falling stone is a visual experience and thus
> biological, that goes for stones at rest also. Hope this doesn't make
> stones "biological" ;-)  

That wasn't not exactly what I was asking, but as far as you understood the
question, you got it right. I asked about the *data*, not the experience of
observation.

>> * What type of pattern is the explanation of why the stone falls?
> 
> The social level has many explanation why a stone falls, but all
> included some animated force (god) imbued in things or in the ground
> attracting it. The intellectual level has the gravity explanation, the
> latter is higher value.

That's just wrong. A social explanation is like a green dream, the words just
don't mix.

>> * What type of pattern is the stone? Does it exist to you?
> 
> A stone is some inorganic aggregate. It exists to me and to all who
> observe it ... and to all I tell that I've seen it if they trust my
> word, but that .... alas.

Is the observing crucial to the stone's status as existing? Does it exist before
someone observes it. If it doesn't, what happens when the first person observes
it? Does it pop into existence right there and then?

> Then to the said crucial issue 
> 
> Pirsig:
>      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.*  
> 
> Bo's comment:
>>> The same (=usless for classification) happens to an intellectual
>>> level before the Greeks. It means that the SOL interpretation is
>>> vouched for by Pirsig. 
> 
> Magnus:
>> First, isn't it a stretch to take that as an approval of SOL? Just
>> because he thinks the intellectual level appeared by that *time*
>> doesn't mean that SOL is the only possible result.
> 
> "Greeks" in a MOQ context=SOM, ergo Pirsig sees the emergence of 
> SOM identical to the 4th. level's emergence. This you possibly can't 
> deny.  

I see the connection, but it's rather circumstantial. And I still think Pirsig 
is wrong on both the social and intellectual levels.

As I've said before, they can be valid viewpoints if only humans are considered, 
but this is supposed to be a meta-*physics*, not meta-*humanity*.


>> Second, as I said the other day. I have refuted the above too many
>> times to count so I don't take it as proof of anything. I simply
>> think Pirsig is wrong here and I would frankly love to hear what he
>> would have to say about my essay.
> 
> Well, about Pirsig being wrong is a way out for you, but it's here he
> is consistent with the message his ideas convey, and what gives the
> MOQ it's explanatory power, while your "thinking intellect" is SOM's
> old tea.   

Come on Bo. You repeatedly claim that Pirsig is wrong as well. you have written 
on may occasions that he should have said this and considered that.

And I don't see what you mean by my "thinking intellect" as SOM's old tea. I 
don't require a thought process for intellectual patterns, only some way to 
represent another pattern via language. It can be a brain, a memory card, a hard 
drive, a mail or a piece of paper with some text on it.

Your SOL messes up the levels. To say that intellectual patterns requires the 
ability to distinguish between subjects and objects raises lots of unanswerable 
questions. For example:

What is the text on a piece of paper? *It* can't distinguish between S/O, so I 
guess it's not intellectual patterns in your SOL. So what are they? Just 
inorganic coal? But you know very well that the text on that piece of paper is 
so much more than just the coal. If you know the language it's written in, you 
can read what it says. And that "what it says" is the intellectual patterns 
superimposed on the coal.

And now, after just checking out one example, we see that it's your SOL that 
requires an old fashioned SOM mind to do the "distinguishing". Perhaps you never 
thought about it, but it's actually an underling assumption in your reasoning 
and without it, it falls flat.


>> I'll summarize:
> 
>> The social level does *not* extend down to atoms.
> 
>> Atoms are created by the atomic level where the only forces (i.e.
>> types of experience/value) are the strong and weak nuclear forces
>> and electromagnetism. Also gravity is involved but that comes from
>> the lower, spatial level.
> 
>> Further, molecules are not societies because they are created by the
>> chemical level. The forces (experience/value) here are the atom
>> bonding preferences of different types of atoms.
> 
>> After that, some basic combinations of molecules are biological
>> value. If two molecules happens to have a good 3D fit with
>> eachother, they can stick together. That's the molecular version of
>> biological sexual attraction.
> 
> Good, you (no longer) don't attribute Q-social value to the inorganic
> and biological levels. The 3D fit as an inorganic prerequisite for
> biology sounds scientific but OK.   

I have never attributed "Q-social value to the inorganic and biological levels". 
You have misunderstood my examples.

>> This sets the stage for the social level. If that combination of
>> molecules are better (i.e. more moral) than they are separate, they
>> will stick together. *That's* a social pattern and it is
>> metaphysically identical to two humans combining to make a family,
>> or a few people with different abilities combining to make a small
>> village. All are better as a whole than the parts individually, they
>> are even better than the sum of its parts.
> 
> But here you go again and it stems from not having understood the 
> MOQ tenet about the levels as an escape from the former level's 
> limitations. "Social" has little to do with mutual attraction, but is about  
> transcending biology, the first social (value) sign is burial rituals that 
> indicate the notion of an existence beyond. NB I don't mean "saving of 
> souls" as in Christendom (which is intellect's body/soul) but existence 
> in a most tangible sense.     

And here *you* go again with your metahumanity. Have you *no* imagination 
whatsoever? There *are* other species you know.

And about "former level's limitations", I wrote the below section about that in 
my essay. I'd say your "escape from the former level's limitations" is rather 
single-minded.

"When levels are compared, they are often seen as opposed to each other. It's 
always this combat between the lower and higher levels and the higher is always 
supposed to grab the moral victory. But no thought have ever been given to how 
the higher level pattern got started in the first place. For example the social 
pattern family would never have been created without the biological pattern 
lust. But even so, these two patterns are always described to be in direct 
opposition to each other. It's of course true that lust to another can destroy a 
family, but it is often forgotten that this same lust also was the initial spark 
that got the family started in the first place. This is also true for all other 
social patterns; this is the biological level setting the stage for the social. 
They all got started because a biological urge happened to result in a socially 
valuable structure. A city got started next to a creek because someone needed 
the water for farming, then a hardware store came along to provide tools for the 
farmer(s), and then I'll let Mark Knopfler continue with some lines from 
“Telegraph Road” by Dire Straits:

Then came the churches then came the schools
Then came the lawyers then came the rules
Then came the trains and the trucks with their loads
And the dirty old track was the telegraph road"


>> When I see a "thing", I want to explain what types of
>> forces/patterns are used to keep that thing intact. You don't seem
>> to bother much with that though. For example, what patterns keep a
>> dog together? Biological you'd say, but does taste, smell and touch
>> keep the dog together? Does the tail taste good to the back end of
>> the dog and that's why the tail doesn't fall off?
> 
> The MOQ merely asserts that life began as a dynamic escape from 
> the inorganic, that's all it claims.

As I said, you don't seem to bother. Well, I *do*! And since I do, I've tried to 
make heads and tails of it instead of striking the ostrich pose.

> If you remember Pirsig says that no 
> rational explanation can be found for how this came about

I agree that no rational explanation can be found to capture the workings of DQ.
But that does *not* mean that we can't say anything about how inorganic matter 
developed into what we call life. As usual, I have a section about this in my 
essay, it seems I have to point at them one by one.

"The inorganic level builds molecules in accordance to its rules and quality 
events. These molecules can become quite large and they can even, still using 
only inorganic quality events, build large crystals and molecules that resemble 
self replication. But when the inorganic level has done what it can, and created 
massive molecules with all these protrusions and intrusions, then it can't do 
anymore. All these molecules are just floating around in the primordial soup and 
no inorganic quality events can be used to refine or even change the status quo. 
The inorganic level has simply finished its job. (This is of course not entirely 
true. I'm sure it had plenty of things to do, but let's imagine this was the 
case in a limited environment.) This is the time for dynamic quality to get to 
work. Instead of waiting around for eons without anything happening, it started 
combining the combinable parts of the soup and thereby created a completely new 
set of static rules, the biological level."


> and also 
> says that the MOQ combines creationism and Darwinism (spans 
> religion and science by making them respectively its own 3rd. and 4th. 
> levels) You suffer from the illusion that the MOQ will improve on 
> science and provide rational explanations how dogs are kept together. 
> Biological value does that like inorganic holds (what was Pirsig's 
> example?) a glass together.      

No Bo, I suffer from you constantly trying to make me join you in your ostrich pose.

>> I think you and many others are making it way too easy for
>> yourselves. You only care to solve one particular problem you set
>> your sights on, but the rest is just left as a pile of rubbish.
> 
> Marsha took over at this point, she liked your Bo bashing, but how it
> developed I don't know. Such "instant-philosophy" I don't bother with.

It's not "instant-philosophy", if you by that mean "cheap hip-shot replies". 
Don't let the short time between the posts fool you. I suggest you read it, you 
just might learn something.

	Magnus