Doug Renselle (renselle@on-net.net)
Wed, 21 Jan 1998 06:33:14 +0100
Hi Ken and TLS,
Wow Ken!! Do you realize how much intellectual ground you covered in
this one email? This is enormous! It will take a long time to address
all of the issues you present here.
I'll hit some high spots and see what happens:
clark wrote:
>
> ----------
...
> ----------
> Doug,
> I haven't thought this through but could it be that the ability to
> solve
> nonlinear differential equations shows us a way to marry the "Church
> of
> Reason" with Dynamic Quality? If this thought has any merit it would
> explain your MOQUP in spades.
Ken,
The tone of my recent emails about the "Church of Reason" took on a
Pirsigian hostility to it and SOM. I read Lila and ZMM so much, that I
share some of Phaedrus' hurt and hostility to the Church of Reason
(CoR). It did great and ignorant damage to our protagonist.
But he was smart. He knew history. He knew (he says so) that pioneers
often get killed, then seldom rewarded in their martyrdom. But he
charged ahead, in spite of this.
I have not said this before, because I felt it might damage TLS. Now, I
feel that we are past that point. TLS has inertia and very bright
people contributing to its great future.
My biggest concern was Pirsig's unilateral condemnation of SOM and the
CoR. The MoQ is excellent and sound. It need not condemn. SOM got us
to the point where we would need the MoQ to move forward. So rather
than condemn it, I prefer we say that MoQ subsumes it.
My own condemnation of SOM, like Pirsig's, is to make a very strong
point: SOM is about the past, it is not about the future. It is time
to move on to MoQ! In the transition, because MoQ subsumes SOM, some of
us can still use it. Nicely, it still works, approximately, in
Classical Mechanics. So it is still valuable there. But as I said
repeatedly, it does not work in general, it provokes endless dilemmas,
paradoxes, and ironies -- all of which in its frail framework are
inexplicable.
So, I don't want to 'marry' the CoR and MoQ! I want MoQ, as does
Pirsig, to "benefit and expand" the foundations of reason itself. I
want it to unify S and O in Q. I want it to unify the domains of
science, art, and the spirit. I think we are showing that it does.
Ken, I see the mathematical tools you list in this email as the tools of
the the two new MoQ's: Metaphysics of Quality and Mechanics of Quanta.
Also, Ken, I see MoQ helping mathematicians and physicists and other
scientists to reason better within the new philosophy. All of science
is moving so rapidly now, we are unable to keep up. So, I tend to focus
on MoQ and quantum stuff. That constrains one's ability to address
everything you mentioned here.
Would you consider a different approach? :-)
Perhaps you might consider one topic at a time and more focused on a
specific issue within TLS' domain?
Just as a quick example: you might ask, "How does Chaos Theory relate
to the recent issues of definable/undefinable, certainty/uncertainty,
and deterministic/non-deterministic in MoQ?" I think several of us
could handle this question in one email.
Ken, I am amazed at your grasp of such a wide range of intellectual
SPoVs!
I hope you do not find my response here negative, or arrogant.
Unintentionally I do that sometimes.
Doug Renselle.
> On another post a short way up the line Hugo and I talked about
> Deterministic Disorder, or Chaos theory as it is popularly called. It
> is a
> way to penetrate nonlinear dynamical systems which up until about 1976
> (after ZMM) were not solvable except by trial and error on the systems
> themselves.
> According to the book Chaos, linear differential equations, which
> are
> solvable, represent about as much of the universe as you could put in
> your
> eye. Chaos theory opens a whole range of deterministically disordered
> systems to penetration. Systems which are locally unpredictable but
> globally (whole system) stable. Like a marble in a bowl.
> Not the same as truly random systems.
> Feigenbaum discovered the universal number 4.6692016090. To obfuscate
> and
> oversimplify, deterministically disordered systems all produce this
> number
> when treated with different mathematical functions. Universality. Self
> similarity and recursion. Strange attractors. A description of what
> happens
> when things work on themselves again and again. Can produce the human
> brain
> and lungs with enough alveoli to cover a tennis court, etc. Sensitive
> dependence on initial conditions.
> Are we talking Dynamic Quality and local uncertainty here? Could we
> be
> talking about the system that produced the human brain having a
> bearing on
> the operation of Dynamic Quality? Could this be the source of your
> uncertainty principle? Am I nuts?
Ken,
No! Clearly you are not nuts! Your mind is on fire! That's great! I
value that particular precondition of TLS. It sets minds afire. That's
another blessing from Mr. Pirsig -- to us, to TLS.
Doug Renselle.
> Can we allow for indeterminism in a
> deterministic system?
Ken,
SOM, classically, says, "No!" The two MoQ's say, "Yes!" The details
take a bit of effort, but if you persist you'll get some great answers.
The quick and easy way to see this one is (my conjecture): any quantum
system, at any scale of complexity, is both deterministic and
non-deterministic.
1) The classical atom fails this test. 2) The quantum atom passes it.
The fact that statement 1 is true is one of the biggest reasons quantum
mechanics/theory was invented.
Mtty, Ken,
Doug Renselle.
-----Browse HIGH you!
-----Browse WELL too!
-----Browse two MoQs.
PS Ken, I really like the Pogo poem.
>
> My Quote (from Pogo)
>
> How misty grows the hazy yon.
> How myrtle petaled thou.
> For spring has sprung the cyclotron.
> How high browse thou, Brown Cow.
>
> Ken
>
-- "It is not the facts but the relation of things that results in the universal harmony that is the sole objective reality."Robert M. Pirsig, --on Poincaré's assessment of classical reality, in --'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,' p. 241, Bantam (paperback), 28th edition, 1982.
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