[MD] Is this the inadequacy of the MOQ?

[Alexander Jarnroth]

Hello again Tim.

I read both.

There are a lot of things I could replay to this.
Because you're talking about "objective reality" I think I should start
there, even though there is not direct correspondence with anything specific
within your text.
My hypothesis, which I have written on in earlier discussions, is that MoQ
stand in a dual relations to Conceptual Systems Theory (CST). Why? Well, if
we begin at the by both rejected Cartesian dichotomy, in MoQ everything is
mind (subject) - while in CST everything is matter (object). There is a
problem with the word "subject" and "object". "The electron was subject to a
magnetic field". "The object of this study is to examine the relation
between the spin of the electron and the magnetic force of the field". So
"mind" and "matter" is actually better.
I've written some on the subject of measurement/observation prior to this.
In the all-matter approach, the scientist interacts with the electron. But
because the scientist is so much larger than the electron, he must act very
gently on it and then magnify its response. The opposite is true with, for
instance, the sun, which is much larger. The scientist I content with
letting just a very small portion of the sun act on him - otherwise he would
be destroyed.
In the all mind-view we can put it this way. The scientist wants the
electron to express itself so as to make an impression on him (the
scientist). What he then does, is to provoke the electron. First he shoots
it off with some kind of apparatus. This doesn't really upset the electron,
but then he lets it pass through an magnetic field. This is serious business
to the electron and it then expresses itself, and thus change the magnetic
field. The apparatus generating the field can sense this - and can magnify
the reaction so as to make an impression on the scientist, however small.
Afterwards, neither the electron nor the scientist, would be the same as
they were before.
The sun, however, expresses itself a lot of the time, and the scientist
wouldn't even try to provoke it in some way. But he doesn't want to get too
impressed, so if he wants to look at the light, for instance, he must reduce
it, so as to not get dazzled or blinded.
And the sun can't express itself all the time without changing its state -
in this case decreasing its amount of hydrogen and increasing its amount of
helium.
You could really use any of these perspectives, or both at the same time,
depending only on your own purposes. It's just a kind of intellectual
framework you use.

Pirsig mentions somewhere the low quality of sitting on a hot stove. A
grown-up would probably know from where the bad perceptions is coming. And
actually, a grown-up in some cases, couldn't even try to sit on the stove in
the first place, even though it was cool. He would rise even before sitting
down.
A small child, however, wouldn't know from where the bad feelings were
coming. It would take some time for it to become aware of the feelings and
then it wouldn't at first know from where they came or what to do about
them. Perhaps it would try screaming while waving its arms and kicking its
legs.
In the case of the grown-up, then, you could say he had a lot of static
quality (SQ) so that he reacted to a perceived sense of low quality, even
though he hadn't really perceived any. The small child, however, was in the
opposite state of mostly dynamic quality (DQ) and thus at first had no idea
to react it was just overwhelmed by the perception at first - and then it
would try anything.
In the all matter approach you can describe this as well. In the adult,
synapses are established in the spinal cord and the limbic systems of the
cortex, which reacts at unconscious perception (the spinal cord) and
induction of prior experience (the limbic system). In the small child, there
is an excess of synapses, each as probable as the other - and thus there is
no preprogrammed reaction in the child's nervous system.

This just to get a better sense of the subject/mind - object/matter and SQ
-DQ distinctions.

The idea, however, is that truth is of no concern. It's just a matter of
usefulness or applicability - relations of correspondence.

Next, the categorization of SQ.
When studying, for instance, the child on the hot stove, you could try to
describe it just in physic-chemical terms. There is heat radiating from the
surface of the stove, which excite electrons in the child's skin. This
radiation and the dissipation of molecular structures starts reactions in
other molecular structures, which results in the creation of electric fields
starting a current and so on.
This description, however, isn't very useful if you try to understand what
happens when the child finally rises. Especially it would be very
inappropriate if you want to explain why and adult wouldn't want to sit on
the stove at all, even if it was cool.
This is why we want to conceptualize at different "levels".
When I said the biological SQ INFORMS physical SQ, I mean that it gives SQ
special structure. In the CST sense, a living system make itself distinct
from its surroundings and in order to do this, it must constantly work so as
to preserve this state -if it didn't it would instantly seize to exist as a
living system.
To "inform" in this sense means "give form" or "organize". The reason I
chose the word "inform" is that in the dual relations between MoQ och CST:
Quality <-> Negentropy = Information.
And the other way around: the reason physical patterns of SQ CONFINES
biological patterns of SQ, is that physical patterns are what the biological
patterns organize.
If you could talk about "principles" at the different levels of moral, you
could say that the major principle at the physical level (on "short"
distances) is the second law of thermodynamics - or "a will to be at
equilibrium".
At the biological lever, thermodynamic equilibrium is equal to death. So
biological systems must have other principles. One major one, is
"self-preservation" - but there is also another which is evolution. The
latter is the DQ of biological patterns. What evolution is, is the mapping
of information from the surroundings to the genome, thus improving the
functions of the biological structures - making them "WORK" better and in
new ways. The "rules" of this game of evolution is, the tautological: "if
you get offspring your genome continues, otherwise it doesn't". Anything
that makes you do this is "good" at this level. 
Now, however, there is the famous example of the slime-mold. When there is
plenty of nutrition, the cells live in an amoebaean state as "free
individuals". When nutrition lacks, however, they clump together forming a
"spore body", which then sends a few cells away with the wind as "spores"
while the rest of the cells die. This is a kind of "pre-social" pattern of
moral. In hard times, a set of human beings behaving in an organized way
will survive, while those who work individually won't. The social system let
individuals die if it has to, in order to preserve itself, and it actively
kills individuals who threatens it, be it from the inside or outside. The
social system is thus always a potential threat to the individual, but it
preserves an abstract "population" in times where the people wouldn't
survive as individuals. In some senses, the social system equals the
equilibrium of an ecosystem.
Now intellectual patterns are created in the human neocortex, most probably
in the frontal lobes. Its purpose is to create rational, that is functional,
behavior. What it can do is to improve the social system. Many societies
throughout history has been destroyed because they destroyed their physical
means of sustenance. For instance, cutting down all trees so that the soil
which they cultivate erodes into the ocean. Intellect can help society
preventing such things.
But society can also try to enslave intellect: because intellect is placed
within a biological body: and society thus always suspect that the intellect
just I trying to satisfy this body - and not to improve society.
If society tries to enslave intellect, such concepts as heresy is created.
Other ways is means to ritualize thought, social stigmatization and so on.
So of course, an ideology is an intellectual pattern, but it is created for
the preservation of society at a static state and not really for improving
society. It shuts all DQ out. It's just SQ and the social SQ is dominating.
For this reason the main objective of the Nazis was the establishment of the
German Reich - that is social system and the supremacy of the Reich, not
just over other social systems, but over intellect as well.

So you could say: that which works is right - but what works depends on
which level you are looking at.

Concerning murder, at an intellectual level, there is an old medieval
argument which goes: "Because the world only exists when it is perceived,
the murder of a perceiving being is always a murder of the whole world".
Or put in MoQ-terms: when you kill an individual's body, you don't just kill
the body, but also the intellect and thus a possible link to DQ.
Thus you could say, that society has a right to kill individuals when it has
to, in order to preserve itself: but for this to be true, you must also add
this: the society in question must acknowledge the supremacy of intellect.
Then of course, it wouldn't if it didn't necessarily have to.

Of course, now I didn't go into all your examples. But my objective now was
to clarify how I interpret the concept and the best way to do that is to
choose appropriate examples, which make clear the idea.

If we go back to primary perception, it is just the Homo Mensura. You don't
have to describe the measure, because the measure is what describe
everything. All else are deductions on inductions. Both MoQ and CST are just
means to help describe this: MoQ for finding the right purposes and CST for
finding the right means.
This is at least the way I perceive it - I hoped it clarified the subject
somewhat more, even though I had to write some amount on it.

/A (Alexander)

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Från: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] För rapsncows at fastmail.fm
Skickat: den 3 november 2010 08:18
Till: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Ämne: Re: [MD] Is this the inadequacy of the MOQ?

A,
Thanks for the recommendation to this Koestler fellow, I had never heard of
him before.

About levels...  First, I just composed my reply to Mark's (118's) post, so
to get a sense of my frame of mind it might be best to read that reply
before starting on this one.  About levels, I just don't see what good there
is for me to get too into it.  Thinking about them casually is one thing.
Knowing that there are these different sources of influence on me (and
others), and being reminded to consider them all if I get caught up in a bad
pattern (or if someone else seems caught in a bad pattern) seems helpful.
But I really don't see a point to trying to make a physics of it.  I guess
this is the crux of a lot of my efforts so far
here: am I missing something big?

I happen to have read a little about Hitler for the first time a few months
back, so I can offer a couple things here too.  My understanding is that
Pirsig was on point when he said that Hitler was very much taken by the
patterns of his Victorian society.  I don't know a thing about victorian
society though :)  My understanding is that he was considered a mediocre
artist and a mediocre intellectual, and that he very much wanted to be an
important member of society.  I don't know if it was the want of power, or
fame, or respect, but perhaps it was this that Pirsig was talking about when
he mentioned Hitler's being dominated by biological patterns.  Now, as you
mentioned, I guess the "biological moral" is: in the battle between biology
and biology, biology can do as it will.  But I don't recall Pirsig giving us
any rules for morality within a level!
So, to the extent that there was a battle between a jewish society and and
Aryan society, and at the societal level, it seems all was moral.
But I think that that was the intellectual argument offered by the Nazis, or
perhaps it was just their hope.  In reality jews were part of a german
society... so the intellectual level is supposed to solve the moral problem.
But, the intellectual level is the highest static level, so if there is no
intellectual resolution, to what is the intellect to yield morally? I guess
the presumption is that there is an absolute truth which judges intelligence
fairly.  I don't know what Phaedrus would say.  But, I do think that he
would not accept your having granted Hitler a mainly intellectual basis for
his suicide!  As I understand, Hitler had a preoccupation with suicide
throughout his life, and many times when his movement hit a bump in the road
he gave in to despair and mentioned that he should just kill himself.

Now, you said, "But what he [Hitler] did was enslaving intellect under
society, by a totalitarian ideology."  I have two directions to go with
this.  The old one you know: (I haven't decided yet on your wording, but let
me play with it here and see what you think) if the biological level
"informs" the inorganic level about morality, and it the social level
"informs" the biological level about morality, and if the intellectual level
"informs" the social level about morality, and if the dynamic level is
pre-intellectual, what informs the intellectual level of its morality?  How
is one to judge a totalitarian ideology?  It is an intellectual conception.
Whatever the intellect will inform society about will have a societal
flavor, but a totalitarian ideology is an intellectual idea.  It is
difficult for me to imagine some absolute truth answering: false!  For
mathmatics, and for science on the inorganic level, perhaps absolute truth
has meaning.  But for social questions I think the whole point is that there
may not be absolute truth; or if there is, which may be a better
presumption, we can't obtain to an objective vantage to know it!  Perhaps
Phaedrus would say that the Dynamic level will work it out in the end.

But this isn't quite satisfying.  So I have this second direction.
Perhaps freedom will give us a clue!  Still we will not have the objective
vantage with which to be sure, but it seems that freedom might suggest the
answer!

Let me start with another example.  Murder.  If we can ask, intellectually,
is murder moral or immoral?  Is Murder high quality or low quality?  Let us
not look at the margins for the moment, but at the center, think of the the
murder of a nice, well-behaved child... playing in the park one fine, summer
afternoon.  The murderer might argue that he should be free "from"
restriction in this regard; the universe values freedom, you should not put
this barrier before me; the universe is more interesting if I can murder at
my whim, and that is why I was able to do it; if reality wanted to prevent
me, it would have done so; there are plenty of possibilities that life has
denied me: I can't fly like a bird, or hold my breath like a while, etc. and
etc.  This is a very intellectual argument; I don't think that there can be
a doubt about that much.

But is it short-sighted? or provincial?  The fact is, reality does restrict
certain seeming-possibilities.  There is another argument.
Just like I do not have wings like a bird, if I am restricted from Murder...
Let me say it this way: if we restrict ourselves from Murder, perhaps that
restriction opens up more freedom elsewhere!  Just like if the atoms of a
DNA molecule restrict themselves to their highly ordered configuration,
rather than a lightly ordered inorganic pattern, animals can go about flying
in the air all over the globe, swimming to all depths of all the seas, and
walking about the Earth loving and thinking, etc. and etc.  Murder is but
one possible action, which has very depressing repercussions; while the
restriction from murder is also one action, but which has much more lively
repercussions.  If we could obtain to a perfectly objective vantage on the
matter, perhaps it would be overwhelmingly obvious that there are more
options in a society free of murder than there are in a society open too it.
Does freedom pick not-murder over murder?

The intellectual idea of a totalitarian state might be defeated by a similar
analysis.  Though of course any such analysis, due to our position
subjectively within the problem, suffers from a lack of
objectivity: that is, we must always worry that our results are too
short-sighted or too provincial.  I don't know if this is what Phaedrus
thought when he identified dynamic quality as freedom...  But even if it is,
and even if it is on point, and even if it is useful for something like
murder, I don't see how it can be very useful for close calls.
Like Lila, marital infidelity?  How are the levels (freedom) going to help
me answer that question?  In fact, it seems that any reliance on an
intellectual prognosis based on the levels will only take me from the best
dynamic answer and lead me into trouble.  Like I said to Mark, I think this
whole analysis of levels is a tool for getting out of the "muddle", it is a
tool for maintenance when the dynamic machine is out of tune.

Tim
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