[MD] Is this the inadequacy of the MOQ?

[rapsncows at fastmail.fm]

A,
thanks for giving me a chance!

My replies below:

On Wed, 3 Nov 2010 11:06:09 +0100, "Alexander Jarnroth"
<alexander.jarnroth at comhem.se> said:
> 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.

Yes, I realize the word is touching a nerve here.  I'm not quite sure
why.  I think that I am lacking historical perspective on its use.  I
don't want to try to fully explain myself (if even that were
possible)...  Perhaps I am being redundant.

> My hypothesis, which I have written on in earlier discussions, is that
> MoQ
> stand in a dual relations to Conceptual Systems Theory (CST).

I don't know a whit about CST, if you can point me to my homework I
would be grateful.

 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".

hmmmm...  Yes, I think there is a problem with language all together; to
quote Phaedrus out of context, "You never get it right."  There is a
good book by Michael Polanyi called "Personal Knowledge: towards a
post-critical philosophy" which I think people here might like.  ... But
there is a reality!  Right?  By 'objective' I mean to imply that we
'confine' ourselves to it.  By 'subjective' I mean that we try to
falsely 'inform' it as to how it should be, because we think - in our
short-sightedness or provinciality - that we would prefer it to be that
way.  Let me at least work with these descriptions for now.  Btw, I
liked your use of the word 'confine' from the start, and 'inform' is
starting to grow on me.  Thanks.

Also, if you recall, there was a time when Phaedrus (in 'zen') was
thinking of subject, object, and quality as more of a trinity.  If I am
a 6 year old for giving 'objective' some serious consideration...

 "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 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.

I don't want you to think that I am ignoring all this effort, but I'm
not sure what to do with it right now.  I think I need to do some
homework if we are to get into it seriously, but I don't know if that is
our immediate aim.

You end with "you could use any of these perspectives...".  If you are
defending perspectives plural, as a logical construct, isn't that
equivalent to S-O?  I mean, the intelligence, or the quality of the cut
might be debatable, but at least the logical framework of cutting is the
same.  Right?

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

I will keep this in mind to come back to.  Or, if there is something
pressing in these parts that you think I need to pay attention to
immediately, please re draw my attention to it.
 
> The idea, however, is that truth is of no concern. It's just a matter of
> usefulness or applicability - relations of correspondence.

Wait!  I really don't get your point here.  I think this is pressing. 
Is there such a thing as truth?  I mean, I understand that language
itself might never be sufficient for expressing truth, and the
particular explanation might be judged only for its ability to draw the
listener to the truth which description is attempted.  Anyway, if you
can clarify this I think it would help.
 
> Next, the categorization of SQ.
...
> 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.

Yes, I think I used your language right yesterday; did I not?  when I
said that the biological 'informs' the inorganic about it's morality. 
When I asked whether DNA, which is a highly ordered configuration (high
negentropy), might be moral based on a principle of freedom... :

the wikipedia page on negentropy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negentropy
gives the equation: Negentropy ~ (-1)*ln Z, where Z is the partition
function, and the -1 is the 'neg'
and the wikipedia page for Z:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_function_%28statistical_mechanics%29
in the section: Meaning and significance
states: "Hence if all states are equally probable (equal energies) the
partition function is the total number of possible states."

thus the question about freedom and its role in morality?  Maybe
Phaedrus was suggesting that there is an "objective' position from which
to count up the total number of possible states available to either of
two moral choices (i.e. murder v. not-murder), and it is this that is to
"inform" our intellect and dynamic sense of quality.

 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.

I think I would need to do a lot of homework to get into this.

> 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.

But you see, these aren't first principles.  As such they are postulates
that might not need postulation.  This just helps to strengthen my
belief that they are sign posts to help you get out of the muddle, and
not principle which should be taken as dogma, or as a platform for
building a model of the real.

 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. 

I think this is a wonderful example of the real and I'm very glad you
drew my attention to it!

> In hard times, a set of human beings behaving in an organized way
> will survive, while those who work individually won't.

But are you postulating 'survival' as the first principle?  Are you
subordinating quality to it?  Or are we just pulling principles for a
highly developed state out of our experience in the muddle?

...
> 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.

So you see, you too seem, to me, to have a need to close the loop!  The
idea that there is an intellectual level with no 'objective' judge
seems, as far as I can tell, to be something that feels repugnant to you
too!

> What it can do is to improve the social system.

And so you are saying here that the social level is to 'inform' the
intellectual level.  You are putting the social above both biological
and intellectual.  And you are, seemingly, suggesting that survival is
the judge of the social.  This is not the MoQ.

 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.

Again, this is making the intellect subservient to the social, not the
other way around.  Right?

> 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.
>

But at the intellectual level, what does 'work' even mean?  And if the
intellectual level is without real meaning, what about the dynamic? 
Aren't we then just reverting to the victorian: society comes first?
 
> 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.

But I could make the intellectual argument that the king could kill
whoever he wants.  How is 'supremacy of intellect' decided?

> Then of course, it wouldn't if it didn't necessarily have to.
> 
>...
> 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)
> 

Thanks again,
Tim
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