From: Leland Jory (ljory@mts.net)
Date: Thu Jun 03 2004 - 20:43:09 BST
On Jun 3, 2004, at 12:36, johnny moral wrote:
> I'm trying to talk about the continuing existence of things, from past
> into future. The pattern of the table is not a pattern like a dress
> makers pattern, in that it is a specification that can be used to make
> other tables, and it isn't just abiding there in the table, not doing
> anything. The pattern of the table is what recreates the table, as it
> just was, again in the event stream. The pattern is that it stays
> what it was. If you destroy the table, the pattern is destroyed. It
> stops repeating into the future. The value of the pattern is how
> strong it is, how likely it is to be repeated when it competes against
> other patterns.
The value of the table can increase after the axe falls if you're
caught in a blizzard with no source of heat other than fire, and you've
run out of firewood. All of a sudden, the table stops being valuable as
"something to set your stuff on" and becomes valuable as a way to keep
from freezing to death.
We keep talking about the "patterns of the table" when we should be
talking about the "patterns of value that the table embodies".
> I feel I'm approaching this as a moral philosopher. I'm not trying to
> explain time, I'm trying to demonstrate that patterns try to repeat
> themselves into the future, that realizing expectation is where value
> comes from. I feel this is the most important insight into value and
> morality.
Time, as such, is nothing but a valuable convention (like mathematics).
Time is a model we humans build to wrap our heads around the concept of
causality. Value doesn't necessarily come from the repetition of static
patterns over time. If so, we'd still be swinging from trees (or
swimming in the primordial soup). For better or worse, and I can't
fully understand or explain it, static patterns DO evolve in response
to Dynamic Quality. This malleability allows the slow climb from the
Big Bang to planetary systems; from the primordial soup to the guy
making soup in his microwave.
> Yes, patterns emerge from the wake of the cutting edge, but they are
> generally the same patterns that were there before. 99.99999% of the
> time, things stay pretty much as they were from moment to moment. The
> table emerged from the wake of the cutting edge just like it was,
> albeit a little older, with a few fewre carbon 14 atoms or whatever.
> And if you had taken a hatchet to it, then the pattern of hatchets
> destroying tables is stronger than the pattern of the table staying as
> it was.
By your own description, 99.99999% of the time they are NOT exactly the
same from moment to moment. Reality is not some static entity that
changes grudgingly, it is a dynamic flow where static patterns need to
hold on for dear life. Reread Lila, the part about the "Static Latch"
theory. Dynamic Quality is ALWAYS at work, through all four levels
simultaneously. Existing static patterns evolve in response to the
force of DQ, but if they cannot maintain their evolved state by
latching onto a new static pattern, then they degenerate at least as
far as they've evolved (if not further, if the previous static latch
cannot maintain it any further).
Our concept of time (to get back to the topic) is a fiction, but an
extremely advantageous one to date, if you'll pardon the expression.
> Yeah, but what isn't poetry? "Sounding poetic" is less poetic than
> just saying what you want to say, I say. I don't know what that blurb
> is getting at, is it saying anything that isn't obvious, is it showing
> me something? I fell asleep after the first "thou".
Everything is poetry, depending on your own set of values. To an
engineer, a new machine design is poetry in metal. To a physicist, a
breakthrough in Quantum theory is poetry in numbers. To a painter, a
masterpiece is poetry in oil and canvas. To a naturalist, a tree is
poetry in nature. The MOQ gives us tools to appreciate other peoples'
poetry, if we let it. Not necessarily to understand it, but to
appreciate its value.
--
Leland Jory :^{)>
Cafeteria Spiritualist and Philosopher
"It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go
away, I'm looking for the truth.' and so it goes away. Puzzling." -
Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
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