Magnus Berg (MagnusB@DataVis.se)
Sat, 27 Sep 1997 18:32:52 +0100
Diana
>I propose a test. Give me a definition of the taste of chocolate without
>using examples or referring to the taste of anything else. We will then
>give this definition to a third party and see if they can identify what
>the flavor is.
Well... it's like, ahhummMarabou... ;-)
Seriously, no of course we can't, just as we can't read a novel directly
in the computer's memory, (except that we actually can since we built
the thing, we didn't build ourselves though).
But a certain taste is *one* specific example of yet another example
that belongs to the level. In this case, taste, is an example of the
level and chocolate is an example of taste. We need much more
general statements about each level otherwise we must go through
that dictionary anyway.
What we generally can say about this level is that it is able to value
tastes, no other level can. It can also value the other examples you
gave. I want to generalize this one more step and say something like
Jason said in his last Retrospect post.
"an ability to respond appropriately to external stimuli".
What I think is your main concern is that in this valuation process,
in the Quality Event, the pre-intellectual taste is lost. You could
stimulate the brain into thinking that it's tasting chocolate, but that
would not be the same as real chocolate, it would not be the same
pre-intellectual Quality Event.
Well, I think we have to live with that. Static patterns are formed by
that Quality Event, and when they are formed there's no way we
can tell the real chocolate taste apart from the faked.
Diana, it is the static patterns on the intellectual side of the Quality
Event I (we) want to define, not the pre-intellectual. The pre-
intellectual IS impossible.
Diana wrote:
>I find it very hard to believe that any reasonable person wouldn't agree
>that each MoQ level represents a different "type" of phenomenon. Even if
>we can't agree on the definition of each "type" we can at least agree
>that the types exist and we can agree on which phenomena belong to which
>type.
I totally agree that each level represents a different type of
phenomenon.
But if these types really exist, try the logical experiment of removing
one
type from the world. What would be missing? If the world is intact then
the type was an illusion, otherwise you can see and generalize what the
level gave the world.
Magnus
>
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