[MD] Stacks

[Ian Glendinning]

Hi Magnus,

I'm all for a stacks view ... every layer comes in three layers,
onion-skins, static levels, etc ... it all depends which patterns are
considered most significant, and I guess your point here is your/our
view is always from a point in that infinitely layered stack. Although
we have broad bands as the agreedstatic levels, we can always find
debating definitive points at their "boundaries", as we often see.

My point though .... you said
"For myself, I'm almost always using the universal stack."

The point is we all (believe we) do.
Ian

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 9:49 PM, Magnus Berg <McMagnus at home.se> wrote:
> Hi all
>
> In a possibly futile attempt at bringing us to the same table so we can
> discuss the MoQ without resorting to personal assaults every now and then,
> I'd like to introduce a new tool to our philosophy toolbox.
>
> It's called stacks and those who read Andy's and my discussion a few weeks
> ago may remember what it is. I have actually tried to explain it earlier,
> but Andy's new, and very natural, name for it was so apt that it might work
> better this time.
>
> The term stack is used in technical contexts. Its primary use is to hide
> unnecessarily technical matters for the user of the stack. For example, when
> you make a telephone call, you have to know the specific procedure you need
> to follow to make the call. The procedure you have followed, or interface
> you have used, is the top side of the telephone stack. Under that interface,
> there are myriads of technical stuff happening. But they are all hidden from
> you as the end user and also divided into separate layers. Each layer is
> pretty thin, i.e. it uses the layer below and exposes an interface upward
> that is a little better, or easier to use, or whatever that particular layer
> is supposed to do. One layer is for example used to hide the fact that a
> call can be routed using several different hardware, such as GSM, land line,
> satellite, and so on. Once we get above that layer, we can disregard such
> matters and concentrate on other things.
>
> Such a stack is pretty much like the static levels of the MoQ. One level
> uses the level below and then exposes something new to the level above so
> the next level can do better and more dynamic things.
>
> Pirsig also mentions such layers in Lila where he talks about a computer's
> different abstraction layers. From the lower end, everything is just
> electrical currents and voltage levels producing the so called flip-flops.
> But from the top side, those flip-flips are the most basic stuff that are
> used to make advanced software.
>
> Ok, I've already said that such a stack is pretty much like the static
> levels, or rather, the static levels can be described as a stack. So what?
>
> Well, here comes the fun part. There are pretty many level stacks being used
> here on MD.
>
> - But there are only *one* set of levels, I hear the choir protest.
>
> Yes, and no. There is one set of level descriptions presented in Lila, and
> when we talk about them, we talk about *the* inorganic level, and *the*
> intellectual and so on. But if we look closely at the text in Lila, we see a
> different picture. For example, in chapter 8 there's a very clear example of
> inorganic patterns in the form of iron filings and magnets:
>
> "Iron filings value movement toward a magnet"
>
> There's no human involvement here, there's only the iron filings and the
> magnet. Nobody is watching it, so there's no human observer. The iron
> filings are the subject that values movement towards the object, the magnet.
> It's pure inorganic patterns having some quality time with each other. This
> inorganic level we see here is the inorganic level in the stack I'd like to
> call "the universal stack". In this stack, humans are (more or less) the end
> result, the top notch, just like the flip-flops inside the computer in Lila.
>
> However, sometimes Pirsig uses another stack that I'd like to call "the
> human perspective stack". For example when he discusses the Victorian moral
> codes, he describes them as social patterns. But they are social patterns
> only if viewed from a human perspective. On the other hand, he also calls
> "collective organization of cells into metazoan societies called plants and
> animals" social patterns. But such social patterns are not social from the
> human perspective stack, but they *are* from the universal stack.
>
> Are there more stacks?
>
> Yes, You can for example find one stack inside a computer. The inorganic
> level in a computer is not made of atoms and molecules, but by ones and
> zeros. The laws of nature doesn't include gravity and electromagnetism but
> only boolean logic such as and, or, not, etc. Computer viruses are a very
> simple form of biological patterns built using those ones, zeros and
> computer logic.
>
>
>
> What's the point?
>
> The point is to be able to recognize which stack each of us is using, and
> then adapt one's argument when discussing the MoQ with someone else. When
> you get to know these different stacks, it becomes pretty clear who is
> primarily using which stack.
>
> For example, the SOL people are, I think, exclusively using what I call the
> human perspective stack. It even goes so far as to subsume the entire
> universal stack into their intellectual level. But as we can see here, it's
> actually not SOM they are subsuming, it's the universal stack.
>
> For myself, I'm almost always using the universal stack. I'm trying to
> discuss matters from the human perspective as well, but it mostly ends up in
> a disagreement when I try to show some aspect of the level from some other
> stack. It was such a relief to discuss this with Andy because we could both
> move very easily between stacks without having to yell at each other. If
> more people could do the same, we'd be having a great time here very soon.
>
> The computer stack is of somewhat limited use here since there aren't that
> many here who are fluent in boolean logic and can understand what it means
> to use that instead of our physical laws.
>
> Another cool thing about these stacks is that it gives us an opportunity to
> examine the levels much more, and to really see if they can stand the
> pressure from being tried out in every imaginable way. For example, the
> inorganic level in the universal stack are built using atoms and our
> physical laws, but the inorganic level in a computer is built using a
> completely different set of stuff and laws. Can we define an inorganic level
> that is general enough to support both of these stacks (and every other
> stack we can find, or imagine)? If we can, the MoQ would truly deserve the
> name meta-physics, because it would support not just one, but any physics.
>
> Perhaps Andy has some things to add here? I'm sure there are lots of fun
> stuff to add about stacks and how to use them.
>
>        Magnus
>
>
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