[MD] Reductionism

[gav]

yo,


> [gav]
> does systems theory privilege the interactions of the
> elements within a
> system over the elements themselves?
> 
> [Krimel]
> I make no pretext to expertise in formal systems theory so
> I can't really
> answer that. But from my own perspective a system is:
> elements interacting.
> In the absence of elements there is nothing to interact.
> Without interaction
> elements are just inert. Neither could be considered a
> system.

gav: the point i am getting at is one of priority. the interactions are dynamic, the elements static. are the interactions - the processes -  ontologically prior to the elements? if so then there is accord twixt the MOQ and systems theory.
how can there be interaction between elements without there first being elements? well this is the pivot point - do we observe directly, empirically, the elements or the interactions?
i would say that only process is empirically given; that is we cannot observe a static element. we can only observe immediate flux, and from this flux we can abstract (static) elements - patterns.
the flux or process is aesthetically apprehended, the elements are conceptual.

your point about systems requiring both elements and their interactions does not contradict my point above. Dq and sq cannot exist independently of one another (on the relative plane). form and formlessness are polar opposites. each presumes the other.  we can never totally or purely experience DQ (except perhaps in madness or death or altered states); the static patterns that make up 'me' are always to a greater or lesser degree influencing perception of the immediate aesthetic flux.

the crux lies in the privileged ontological status of the dynamic, the unpatterned, the pre-conceptual, this flux. anything we identify *in this flux*, any pattern, is abstracted from it, ie it comes after the experience of the flux. 

i hope this made some sense

sartre's 'nausea' deals with this when the author/protagonist, when looking at a tree, sees not a tree but an alien, unique, dynamic flux of perceptions. the category 'tree', he realises, is abstract; the 'real' tree is unique, infinite.

gav




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