Bodvar Skutvik (skutvik@online.no)
Sun, 31 Aug 1997 11:32:33 +0100
Dear LilaSquad members.
(Welcome to Platt Holden by the way)
I swore to stay a bit low as not to become a "ghost"
(Norwegian=gjenganger) on this forum, but Magnus' letter (30/8) was so
extremely stimulating and interesting that I simply HAD comment on it.
This puzzle looks like a blow to the very core of the MOQ idea and I
congratulate Magnus for providing this most crucial acid test of its
validity. I also congratulate him on his own solution to it. A most
impressive piece of work this.
My own answer to his first point is "YES, definitely: a static level is
dependent upon the next lower one", but I also agree that artificial
intelligence is possible in the MOQ universe. Only in that, I will add,
because in the Subject/Object world view the "awareness" or "consciousness"
concepts put up an impenetrable defense. And yet, as Magnus points out,
this produces an impassé: How can static Intellectual patterns arise
directly out of static Inorganic patterns (matter=machines) skipping two
levels altogether?
He goes on to say:......
"According to Pirsig, this would be utterly impossible because it
involves skipping not only one but two static levels. And this
really bugs me! Is there no way in h-ll anyone, anywhere or
anytime, can build such a thing?"
I don't think Pirsig has said anything about this particular theme, but I
acknowledge Magnus' deduction, so how can this be reconciled?
I think Magnus delivered a valuable and valid solution himself: it is only
in a superficial sense that levels are bypassed. The robots/machines may
constitute an "artificial" society as well, and that leave only one static
level missing, i.e. "life". But it may be discussed if not there is an
"artificial" organic level too? Yes, I would even omit the artificial term
in a metaphysical sense.
Then Magnus says something that is a bit ambiguous to me:
...."The static patterns we see around us, are built using lower levels of
static patterns. Why? Because at the time they "appeared", there was
nothing else around to build it upon. Or, rather, the lower patterns
that formed was the first pattern that the higher level *could* use to
build upon. Just because our world looks like it does in terms of
what specific patterns of each level have formed, doesn't mean that
it *has* to be that way."
I agree fully to the first part, and also to the last if he by this means
what
building block (element) the Dynamic forces used for introducing "life" on
to matter (carbon) was a coincidence, but I uphold that the
matter-life-society-intellect sequence is
inviolable.
I would have liked to see other opinions on this most highly interesting
facet of
MOQ, but also the most pressing problem of the next century, millennium
possible.
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