[MD] Stacks

[Magnus Berg]

Hi Bo

On 2010-07-29 10:09, skutvik at online.no wrote:
> Magnus
>
> 27 July you gave a lecture about "stacks"
>
>> 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.
>
> I have no comment except that the stack idea is included in the MOQ
> by the tenet about the static levels not knowing the Q context. Biology
> does not know the inorganic, as little as society knows biology.
> Knowledge is intellect's science, but its "logies" aren't the Q-levels so I
> don't know what tool the "stack" concept can be, the Q context is only
> seen from the MOQ and there the said phenomenon is already known.

When in doubt, mumble...

If you say the stack idea is included, then you haven't understood what 
I mean. Nowhere in Lila does Pirsig mention anything that could be 
interpreted as a stack, or even that he is aware that he's talking about 
different stacks when he talks about iron filings, metazoan societies 
and Victorian moral.

You also silently removed the paragraph about the computer stack. Didn't 
it fit into your theory?

>> 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.
>
> If you by " SOL people" mean the strong interpreters we do not have
> any "human perspective" at all.

Is that right? So, gravity did exist before a human formulated a theory 
about it?

> The fact that the human organism was
> the carrier of the social level and thus is included in the "stack" under
> the intellectual level does not count. You are right about the intellectual
> level - from inside itself -   is "the universal stack"

I didn't say *is*, I said subsumes.

But you make it quite clear what you think when you write "is". You 
simply see the universal stack through the eyes of the intellectual 
level of the human perspective stack. Then you say that what you 
perceive through those eyes are identical to, i.e. "is", what's on the 
other side because you're afraid of assuming you see a reality "out 
there" with a mind.

I see Ian was right the other day, when he warned me that many won't 
even recognize that they *are* using the human perspective stack.

Let me ask you one thing:

You say that gravity didn't exist before Newton, right? And that it 
changed somewhat with Einstein. You don't acknowledge any difference 
between gravity and the theory of gravity, right?

Then, imagine a biological pattern, take a flu virus. Flu viruses have a 
nasty habit of changing now and then. They adapt to new medication so 
they can spread as much as possible. When we analyse this flu virus, 
they call it a little bit different every year because it seems to be 
different every year. Just like gravity, we need to adapt our 
understanding of the pattern to be able to make new medication when 
required, just as we needed a refined understanding of gravity when 
aiming for the moon.

Now, in your view, is there a difference between these two refined 
understandings of gravity vs the virus?



> but the strong
> interpretation says  that intellect from the MOQ seen is the SOM, i.e.
> the universal perspective (the object) AND the human perspective (the
> subject). So, FYI, it's not the intellectual level that subsumes SOM, it's
> the MOQ that subsumes it by making it is own intellectual level.

Here you confirm what I said above. You're afraid of being accused of 
looking at an objective reality "out there", so you say there's a 
quality event when we observe reality (the universal stack). BUT, you 
have forgotten that quality events happen also between different 
inorganic patterns in the universal stack. Every single time an atom 
bounces into another atom, there's an inorganic quality event. It would 
be quite impossible to perceive all those events from the human 
perspective, but we don't have to. Nature takes care of itself. Neither 
you, nor Platt need to baby sit it.

>> 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.
>
> But dear Magnus, "examining the levels" in a scientific sense is not
> MOQ's business, science examines physics, biology, sociology and
> psychology, but none of these correspond to the Q-levels.

Oh, but some of them do! That's what I tried to show in "the levels 
undressed". Some disciplines, especially inter-field disciplines, would 
flourish with a little MoQ knowledge about level dependency.

> The MOQ
> merely says that there are these levels and how their relationships are
> Again, inorganic quality has nothing to do with SOM's inorganic ...etc.
> until the most important point is reached: INTELLECTUAL QUALITY
> HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SOM's INTELLECT!

They are not identical, but of course they are related. Intellect would 
be impossible without intellectual patterns of the universal stack. What 
you're talking about when you talk greek philosophy, is the intellectual 
level of the human perspective stack. And then you are more or less correct.

I just love this new tool. Now I can say in a sentence what took an 
entire post before.

	Magnus