Re: LS cloning and MOQ.

From: Jeffrey W. Travis (Jeff.Travis@gsfc.nasa.gov)
Date: Thu Feb 04 1999 - 18:24:36 GMT


Greetings, Squad! --

After having lurked on moq_discuss for some time, this is my first attempt
at actually contributing something. I won't use bandwidth here to give
background info on myself, but I hope to have a bio on the MoQ website
eventually (as soon as I can find some time to write one).

At 02:30 PM 2/2/99 -0800, Troy wrote:

>finally, Mary brought to light the perspective anthropologists might
>share: in a sense, biological reproduction (procreation) is playing this
>game of facsimile. humankind keeps on making more humans. at the simple
>level of one bacterium, it is simple to say that it is almost exactly the
>same bacterium as its foreparent a thousand generations back. likewise,
>in light of human complexities, at least at the inorganic and biologic
>levels, we individual sapiens (like me) are facsimilies of homo sapiens
>who looked up at the stars ten thousand years ago and wondered (human DNA
>is human DNA). only the social changes and intellectual constructs
>differentiate us (a result of the driving force of Dynamic Quality).

Troy, Squad -- how sure are we of this?

Yes, human DNA is human DNA. But might not DQ allow for the possibility of
combining the basic building block amino acids in new, higher-Quality
patterns, even while allowing for the basic constraints of both the DNA
itself
(human => 46 chromosomes) and our physical construction (human => 2 legs, 2
arms, eyes on front of skull, etc., etc.) as defined by the patterns within
the DNA?

A modification of the thought experiment could address this question. Let's
now suppose that our clone has only the inorganic and biological patterns
reproduced, not the social and/or intellectual ones. Let's also suppose
that we can somehow isolate our clone from current culture (social PoV),
but make available some or other artifacts of our current technology.
[And I realize that what I've just proposed is a bit self-contradictory.]
Would our clone be equipped to figure out what to do with them?

What's motivating this line of thought is that I've finally gotten around
to reading the Macdonald article, "Implications of a Fundamental
Consciousness", that was an moq_discuss subject a little while back.

[Thanks much to whoever originally posted the link, and here it is again . . .

http://www.cop.com/cmtu3htm.html

]

The thing that's interesting to me about the article is that Macdonald is
challenging the fundamental assumption of the physical sciences, that
everything that is real is physical in nature. [With the corrollary that
whatever has not been demonstrated to have a physical basis has not been
demonstrated to be real.] He posits another fundamental aspect of reality
-- awareness -- that is transmitted by some nonphysical means.

OK, I can accept that. The assumption of the physical sciences is an
arbitrary intellectual constraint, driven perhaps by our social PoV.
And Macdonald's alternate construct is equally arbitrary, as well --
although it might ultimately found to "work" better as a model. It's
notable to me that Macdonald is not really trying to demonstrate that the
physical sciences' basic assumption is wrong -- he's just saying "What
if it's really this way instead?"

But OTOH, what if the physical sciences' assumption is right, at least to
some extent? Might that mean that our clone could figure out what to do with
the technology, even though s/he were isolated from the social/intellectual
PoV that produced it? Further, might it also imply, in contrast to what
Troy said, that we are not quite the same human beings who looked up at the
stars and wondered 10,000 years ago? That it might be that there is some
inorganic/biological (read: physical) means, as yet undiscovered, by which
Dynamic social/intellectual advances might be statically latched and thereby
retained? That this is part of the overall picture of biological evolution?

I've not come to any conclusion on this myself; I'm just throwing it into
the mix for folks to consider. I'm basically sympathetic to Macdonald's
alternate construct, and find it a pretty good fit with MoQ, but appreciate
the impossibility of "proving" it and the great difficulty of even
demonstrating conclusively that it consistently "works" better.

[I also realize that this idea may be in conflict with MoQ orthodoxy as
originally set forth in "Lila", but I can't see writing it off solely on
that basis.]

So does anyone care to speak to this modified clone experiment?

Regards,

Jeff Travis

MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org



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