Hugo Fjelsted Alroe (alroe@vip.cybercity.dk)
Mon, 19 Jan 1998 05:54:57 +0100
Platt, Doug and LS
Doug, on my comment on principle # 9, you said:
>Hugo,
>
>The above references to Quality as bounded, for me, are problematic. I
>do not see the accumulation of SQ as bounding Quality.
>
>In comparison, I see one of SQ's goals that of approaching
>asymptotically infinite intellect. However, I do not see this progress
>as bounding Quality in any way. SQ is unlimited on the upside, yet it
>in no way bounds Quality. IMhO.
>
>Doug Renselle.
I am thinking in terms of possible and actual being, as an old
philosophical counterpart of the dynamic and static quality of Pirsig. I
wrote a couple of mails to the list on 29.oct.97 where I tried to explain
my view on this. Let me have another try.
First, I equate dynamic quality with the possible and not yet actualized,
and static quality with the actualized. I will give a simple dice example
first.
I have a homogeneous block of wood, and I want to make a die from it. A
range of dice are possible, in fact an infinite (well, - huge ;-) range of
dice; from the spherical and somewhat dull die to the cubic, and beyond.
This block of wood is an image of our primeval uniform potency - the
dynamic quality as source of everything. Now some die gets actualized (via
my modest creation, but this does not imply that a creator is always
necessary), lets say one with seven unequal sides, you know - a kind of
postmodern die. This actual die, this static pattern of values, now makes
up the ground for an interesting game of dice, which was not possible
before the die came about. This is an image of the dynamic quality founded
on, and bounded by, static quality.
In fact this is the seed to a very general theory of evolution (and - since
everything comes around through evolution - a theory of everything :-) and
by taking this as pivotal in a MoQ-like metaphysics, I may diverge from
Pirsig - I don't know, I just know it is pivotal in my own understanding.
Doug, on my comments to principle # 11, you said:
>Hugo,
>
>One of the great strokes of genius from Kurt Goedel in the 1920s and
>1930s was his use of self-reference (recursion) to achieve his
>"Incompleteness Theorems."
>
>I like Platt's "Proof" principle for exactly this reason.
>
>Platt shows perspective at an extraordinary, high, Quality level in this
>statement. It is simple, elegant, and after Platt opened our eyes with
>it, it as do all great breakthroughs, became intuitive.
And Platt gave a long and thorough reply to me (thanks Platt) which I have
not yet fully understood, but which made me see, that it is not the
principle itself: "It is impossible to refute that Quality is reality
without asserting a value", which I dislike, but the fact that the
principle is called "Proof". A proof is essentially a referral of a
proposition to a set of axioms (a set of obvious or just presumed
statements) in a consistent (logical) system, establishing the proposition
as a deduction from the axioms (as far as I understand). There is no proof
for the system itself, no proof for the axioms and no proof for the logic,
and we might agree that making a proof is a special form of valuation. The
MoQ or something like it may establish itself as a better way of
understanding ourself and our world, but saying that it can be proven to be
better is the same as saying that it is only part of some larger system, -
and then we need a proof for that system. Or?
Regards
Hugo
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