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

[Platt Holden]

Hi Magnus,

Looks to me like we use the English language differently, as comments below 
indicate.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Magnus Berg" <McMagnus at home.se>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 3:33 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] How far do you go to preserve individual life?


"> 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?

]P]
You needn't go into orbit to illustrate the point. Robinson Crusoe who was
left alone on a desert island showed his capacity to think, supported
by social patterns in his memory. No "vaporizing" of social patterns 
occurred.

>> 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]
OK. When you wrote "absolute" I assumed a totally functioning brain.

>>> [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.

[P]
Here's where we really depart language-wise. "Social" to me is about
people. To you it means any group of related things. Also, "language"
to me is what people speak to convey their thoughts. To you it includes
whatever makes computers and muscles work. The different meanings
we attribute to English words probably accounts for our differences
about "support" and "dependency." .

>>> 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.

[P]
Sorry but I don't follow your argument at all. On the one hand, the MOQ
is an intellectual description of reality. On the other hand, its levels are
reality itself. Seems we can eat the menu.

I assume your a computer expert, Magnus. Perhaps if I had the same
expertise in that field as you, I would understand you better. Or,
perhaps it's the difference in our native languages. Or, maybe it's just
me. Anyway,  thanks for your patience.

Platt