[MD] How far do you go to preserve individual life?

[Magnus Berg]

Platt

On 2010-09-18 13:43, plattholden at gmail.com wrote:
> [P]
> I think you left out the human capacity for memory. Instellectual patterns are
> learned from society except some rudimentary patterns some believe are innate.
> Removing someone from society who then still exhibits intellectual ability
> doesn't prove he wasn't dependent on society for learning those patterns
> durning his formative years. So I think your example of non-dependency on
> society leaves something to be desired, along the lines Arlo has pointed out..

And I just think you're inventing excuses as you go. What it boils down 
to is this:

If a person is separated from the society from which he learned an 
intellectual pattern. Say he's in high orbit around the earth and the 
earth was struck by a big bad monster asteroid leaving the earth in a 
messy pool of lava. Will that person be able to recollect what he had 
learned? In that instant, those intellectual patterns must be supported 
by some social patterns, and those social patterns must be supported by 
biological and so on. The social patterns of his old human society is 
vaporized, so you can't use those. Are you saying he will lose his 
capacity to think just because everything else he ever knew is gone?

>
> Magnus
> Pirsig, you and all others who claim it are just doing it because you
> can't find the real dependency, which is the society of the human body
> itself. The intellectual patterns of each human being depend on the
> language of the nerve signals and synapses of the human brain. Take
> *that* away and the intellectual patterns goes with it. You might even
> be able to sustain the biological "life" of the rest of the body,
> because that is not really dependent on neither the synapses nor the
> intellectual patterns. But then, what you have a brain dead person.
> Don't you see that it all makes sense? We have here a direct and
> absolute dependency from intellectual to social through biological down
> to inorganic.
>
> [P] The term "absolute" may be what you are relying on. There are people with
> defective nerve signals and brain synapses who still are capable of forming
> intellectual patterns. There are degrees of biological functioning. So I
> consider your argument to be flawed.

Excuses, excuses. Why would defective nerve signals and brain synapses 
prohibit them from thinking? The may be limited somehow, and may not be 
able to do this or that common task. Degrees of biological functioning 
can of course result in degrees of higher level functions. They're still 
absolutely dependent. If they weren't, they wouldn't affect higher 
levels, but as you say, they do. So your argument came out flawed, not mine.

>> [P]
>> I think I may be getting a glimmer of understanding you. Correct me if I'm
>> wrong.
>>
>> 1. Your reference to "underlying assumptions" is restricted to your three
>> stacks, Computer, Universal and Human. It doesn't mean, as I first thought,
>> that your system could reveal all the assumptions underlying a philosophical
>> point of view such as those underlying science.
>
> Magnus
> Hmm... I wouldn't want to restrict myself to only three stacks. On the
> other hand I wouldn't dare to claim it could reveal *all* underlying
> assumptions.
>
> [P]
> OK.
>
>> 2. The underlying assumption of your stacks is that all knowledge can be
>> divided into three parts -- things that happen in computers, things that happen
>> without human observation, and things that happen as interpreted by humans.
>
> Nah, rather that the MoQ levels can be applied to those three stacks.
> The levels contain different patterns in those three stacks.
>
> [P]
> Hmmm. This is where I get lost.

A social pattern in the human perspective stack can consist of a city 
hall, schools, library, fire fighters and a natural language, Swedish in 
my city.

A social pattern in the computer stack can consist of a CPU, memory, 
hard drive, I/O ports and a language of ones and zeros.

A social pattern in the universal stack can consist of a brain, heart, 
blood, eyes, hands and a language used to see, feel and move muscles.

>
>> 3. Your stack system does not reveal its underlying assumption. It doesn't
>> appear anywhere in the stacks.
>
> No, as I said, I didn't claim it would reveal all assumptions. The MoQ
> is still the metaphysics. I don't claim to replace that.
>
> [P]
> Your stacks "apply" to Pirsig's levels but do not "replace" his metaphsicis
> which, except of DQ, is all about the levels and the interplay of their static
> patterns.So it appears your stacks are metaphysical in nature, covering all
> reality. Thus my confusion.

Ok, as I've said before, stacks are really not necessary, but if you 
take a look at the three quite different social patterns I've described 
above, I have realized that not many accept all of them as social 
patterns. Personally I have a hard time realizing that anyone can't see 
the similarity and that they are metaphysically identical. So that's why 
I thought stacks could be a good way to both acknowledge the difference, 
but at the same time recognize the metaphysical similarity.

>> Thanks for your continued patience. My ultimate question would be: "How is it
>> possible to exclude the human perspective from knowledge unless one is God?"
>
> Knowledge? Well, I think we must back up one step here. We can't *know*
> anything, I'd say. However, if we assume the MoQ, we *can* know all
> these things without having to be some god
>
> [P]
> What I meant to convey was that while you have isolated one of your stacks as
> the human perspective stack, the other two stacks are also the result of the
> human perspective. (I figure each stack is a stack of knowledge, i.e.,
> intellectual patterns.)

Yes, I understood that. But I don't only see the four levels as our 
window to the reality "out there" as you seem to do. You seem to still 
be stuck in Descarte's "I think, therefore I am". But I'm not.

I say that if we assume the MoQ and the levels, then we can not only 
understand reality as combinations of those levels intellectually. We 
can also assume that reality really *is* built by patterns of those 
levels (because we assumed the MoQ and the levels). We can look at old 
layers of bedrock and determine that these layers were really laid down 
there x billion years ago. It becomes not just something we can know 
intellectually now, it becomes something that really did happen those x 
billion years ago.

And no, I'm not trapped in SOM, don't even think it.

	Magnus