To David, Horse, Bo, and Troy (and now Rick)
I (Roger)disagree with much of David’s answer to Horse.
David wrote:
<<THE most important problem that the MOQ resolves
is the mind body problem. The mind/body problem has been the main
sticking point since SOM was "invented". It's the riddle SOM could never
solve.>>
Pirsig’s solution is that value is all, and that matter is composed of static
patterns of value, and that there are also biological patterns and social
patterns and intellectual patterns. Pirsig points out that the current
physics interpretation undermines the old classical matter definition. He
then doesn’t deny mind, he explains it via the interaction of all 4 value
levels.
David:
<<Our thought experiment is just another way of presenting the mind body
problems all
over again.>>
So lets solve it using the tools Pirsig provided.
David:
<<Horse, you want an example of these false assumptions? Later in the same
post you asked a question that contains one of those false assumptions.
You asked, "...where do memories physically reside? Memories must exist
somewhere..." Memories physically reside? Well, if that ain't SOM, I don't
know what
is. Is the mind in the body or is the body in the mind. Classic SOM
absurdities.>>
Well let me try a simpler absurdity on you then. Right now I am playing John
Coltrane’s "Giant Steps", a beautiful work of art. Well, John died in the
60’s, so he can’t be playing right? So where does the music come from? From
the copied CD? From the speakers?
No, it comes from the dynamic interaction of the essential system elements.
The jazz scene of the 50’s that helped produce the artist that played his
saxophone, the microphone and reel to reel that coded the sound into a storage
medium, the CD pressing plant, the CD player designed to convert dashes on a
disc to electrical impulses, the electric company to provide energy into the
system, the amp and speakers, and the listener that has been culturally raised
to hear the art. I have actually left out 99 % of the system elements….but
the point is obvious.
Value creates all of these patterns. And these patterns are duplicate-able.
In the case above, we can copy the CD, as long as the rest of the system
around it exists.
Similarly, memories reside in the system. If you duplicate the entire system,
or duplicate the inorganic and biological system and share the greater social
and intellectual system, you can clone a human. This isn’t just DNA, it is
every last system parameter within the cloned body.
David:
<< I think Bodvar's response to the idea of transfering memories is quite
relevant. He said, "..I don't think that it is feasible - principally -
within the MOQ framework. The levels are inextricable connected and no
upper level can be isolated or transfered".
I think he's right on. Each of us a unique complex of patterns of value
from all four levels at the same time. In the MOQ universe, that's the
definition of what we are. To suppose any seperation of our minds (soc
and int patterns) from our bodies (org and inorg level patterns) is to
relapse into a SOM view of reality.>>
Then how is John Coltrane’s performance transferred? It is isolated, copied
and then reinserted into an appropriate system. Copying John himself would be
much more complex, but the MOQ doesn’t even begin to suggest that it wouldn’t
be possible ….
David:
<< Troy really nails it. He said, "..copying Dynamic elements seems to
me a contradiction of terms ... exact copies of such things are logical
chimeras since DQ is not static, and therfore not copiable". Right on!
Trying to copy something as dynamic as an individual's intellectual
patterns is like trying to hold water in your hands or capture the wind
in a box.>>
Or like copying a brilliant performance? Copying the wind in a box can’t work
because the essential system elements are not duplicated. But Coltrane’s
clearly dynamic performance is duplicatable within the complete system
parameters. And Coltrane himself could be copied too.
David:
<< In effect our thought experiment asks, where do "I" reside?
……….To ask that is the same as asking,
where does quality reside? Is it in the object or is it just subjective?
Sound familiar? The MOQ says that quality resides in neither subject nor
object. Quality is more primary than subjects or objects. Quality
(values, morals, consciousness) is the groundstuff of reality. We are
composed of it. To ask where it resides is meaningless from a MOQ
perspective…… >>>
You are part of a system created by value. If you can recreate essential
parts of the system, you can copy a performance and a conscious person. I am
not saying that you are just body, you are a system of value interaction. And
just as Coltrane’s performance doesn’t reside in the CD, you don’t reside in
your brain. You are the system.
Roger
PS I just read Rick's similar rebuttal with the computer memory analogy.
Obviously I agree strongly with him.
MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org
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