[MD] Is this the inadequacy of the MOQ?

[Alexander Jarnroth]

Hello Tim.

For once I will actually replay on your comments and not write a new "essay"
on top of everything.

***Original Message:***

*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.

REPLAY: I said in another discussion that I think that there is an "absolute
reality" (ab-solut - "from out of the solution") but I don't think that you
can "abstract" (abs-trahere "pull out from") an "ultimate concept" ("final
offspring") from perception (in-collection). But my idea is that our
perception in itself must be a part of reality, it can't in itself be
fundamentally different from the rest of reality. But we do live only in the
world of our perceptions and concepts - and not really in what's outside.

> 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.

REPLAY: The most important books, I guess, are "General Systems Theory" by
Ludwig von Bertalanffy and "Living Systems" by James G Miller.

 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...

REPLAY: But one of the fundamentals of thinking is the mapping of mental
ideas onto reality. All construction is such a map. You HAVE to do that.
Life has changed this planet a lot of times. Living beings for example
produced so much oxygen that all free iron atoms were oxidized and later
filled also the atmosphere with oxygen. And every action leads to an
reaction - so everything is interaction. You can't be just observing without
changing.

 "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?

REPLAY: To me, it's just to intellectual patterns which both are useful in
terms of MoQ. In Systems Theory they are just two systems of thought. And in
my eyes they work well together as duals in a geometric sense: that is
statements made within one has a dual statement made within the other. Some
problems are more easy to solve within the one, and some problems within the
other. So I can change from the one to the other anytime I think it useful.

> 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.

REPLAY: most concerning the distinction of SQ and DQ.
 
> 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.

REPLAY: Deliberate lies = untruth? You say that in court: "the truth and
nothing but the truth" - but the truth about what? Well, your belief and
memory. Not about reality. I prefer talking about "correct statements"
within some context f thought, where you have a specified "evaluation"
function. Then "truth" is just a value, as in formal logic. But this kind of
"truth" is to quite a large extent relative, then. I think that, what comes
closest to the truth-concept most people want, is "it is what it is" and no
other specification. Perhaps it should be no surprise that God said that to
Moses: "Tell them that I am the one I am" or "tell them that I am the one
that is (has been and will be)".
 
> 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 its morality. 
*When I asked whether DNA, which is a highly ordered configuration (high
negentropy), might be moral based on a principle of freedom... :

REPLAY: DNA is just a code, such as spelling. The evaluation of the DNA is
to the cell the creation of polypeptides, proteins and enzymes. To the body
it is also structure based upon polypeptides and cells. To the body the
function of a cell as a whole is often more important than the function of a
particular gene.
Negentropy is a measure of a lot of things, information, improbability,
degree of freedom and so on.

*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.

REPLAY: The idea comes from equation Shannon entropy of information theory
with the entropy of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. You need more
information about, that is, more observations of, an high entropy system
than a low.  So the idea goes.

 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.

REPLAY: They are rather definitions. You can do this, because the above
mentioned dual relationship. I don't think Pirsig himself ever explained the
these distinctions.

 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?

REPLAY: I said above that if a system doesn't preserve itself, it cease to
exist. Thus it "confines". All a starving man would think about would
probably be either himself or those he love (in a lot of the great
starvations through history a lot of people refused to eat, just to let
others live). But he could get on DQ by accident of course, because he would
try just anything. But then it wouldn't be a result of intellectual effort
in most cases. More like trial and error at the biological level. What the
social system did, was allowing people to live more densely and get beget
more children. Thus they increased their number, which, at the biological
level of moral, is "right". More is more. And now their ancestors are about
six billions, while those still living in small communities (more like
groups than societies) are just some thousands. As with the cells. So
biologically it definitely was "right". Most people living today are
dependent upon the social system, in the same sense that the cells of the
body are dependent on the body. They wouldn't survive without it: and if
their bodies die, so do their intellects and their DQ potentials.

...
> 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!

REPLAY: "What doesn't kill you can only make you stronger". Anything that
goes, goes. 

> 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.

REPLAY: No, intellect informs society by changing society. Intellect is,
ultimately, just confined by society, because it would hardly have the time
to develop any "higher" ideas or ideals without the support of society.



 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?

REPLAY: Again: Intellect shouldn't destroy society, because it is dependent
on it, but it should try to re-form society - constantly. A society going
static won't last long.

> 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?

REPLAY: Functions - work. If I see a bird waving its wings and then think
that I could fly, waving my arms, and the jump off a cliff with this belief,
then my "idea" won't work. In this sense empiricism is a kind of method for
evaluating static intellectual patterns. And again: intellect shall not
destroy society, but society must be ready to re-formed by intellect. This
is the meaning of then intellectual supremacy. Thus, society can tell
somebody "you won't be allowed to do this act with your hands" but it can't
say "you are not allowed to think that thought" and it not to say "you are
not allowed to argue for this idea".
And of course an idea, however good it is, won't "work" in society if
society isn't ready to accept it. But at society rejecting every new idea
would be too static, even if the other way around is true also: it can't
just accept any idea blindly.
 
> 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?

REPLAY: If he does it by pure force, then it's biological moral, and at that
level he's right. But, a king, as both Thomas Hobbes and Machiavelli knew,
can't just go around kill anybody arbitrarily for very long without losing
his support. He has a kind of social "responsibility". And the king as a
"human being" is of no importance to society, it is his function. If he is
dysfunctional society would abort him after some time. So the king can, in
this harsh sense, only to that he can get away with. This would be
"acceptable" at the social level of morale, but it would be immoral at the
intellectual level of morale.

/A