Horse (horse@wasted.demon.nl)
Tue, 1 Sep 1998 18:25:10 +0100
Hi Magnus and Squad
MAGNUS WROTE:
"It's static enough to be called my fingernail from
childhood until I die, but it's dynamic enough to grow
new tissue if it's injured or cut."
HORSE:
A good example of static patterns - in this case dead organic
material (does this make it inorganic?) - also being Dynamic?
What's referred to as the 'fingernail' is both static and dynamic but
what constitutes those patterns is static. Hair and much of the
epidermis is of the same form. This goes back to the discussion I
had with Platt some time back about death.
MAGNUS WROTE:
"So why was it such a disaster when the library of Alexandria
burned to the ground? It wasn't just a house and some paper that
was lost, it was thousands of volumes filled with the ideas of living
and dead thinkers. It was the countless intellectual patterns stored
in those books that was lost, everything else could be replaced."
MAGNUS AGAIN:
How many layers are needed are contextual. If a diamond hangs
around the neck of a princess, it has quite a lot of social value I'd
say. And the ink in Lila is also intellectual patterns.
JONATHAN WROTE:
Diana, I think that you are looking for "objective" value IN the rock
and computer disks. But Pirsig rejects this as a starting point. The
value (Quality) comes BEFORE the object subject split. Pirsig's
starting point isn't the THINGS themselves, but in the
INTERACTIONS which define them. The 4 levels of patterns are
based not on things, but interactions. The inorganic value of a
computer disk is revealed in inorganic analysis. Its biological value
(or lack of it) is revealed when you try to eat it. The social value of a
diamond may well be determined in an auction room, while the
intellectual value of a novel can be determined in a written or verbal
discussion about it. The particular Subject-Object split which
emerges in each case is context dependent, but it is important to
remember that in Pirsig's terms it is the contextual values which
create the SO, and not the other way round.
HORSE:
The floppy disk and diamond are interesting examples as they
seem to be indicative of a continued move toward a combinatorial,
inclusive view of the MoQ within the Lila Squad. Both are examples
of inorganic patterns of value which create and constitute the
objects but at the same time appear as examples whereby other
levels of value take a hand in shaping not only perception of the
object, but the object itself. My interpretation, and that of others in
the LS, of Lila and the MoQ in general, is that neither objects nor
subjects are excluded from our interpretation/perception of reality,
but that it is value that has created objects and causes them to
persist. The interactions (or relationships) between patterns seems
to recreate the object (the floppy disk or the diamond). However,
this would also appear to be a transient phase in the the 'life' of the
original PoV's. Remove the data from the floppy disk by
reformatting and the floppy disk becomes something other than it
was previously. Similarly with the diamond, if it is removed from the
princess and thrown into the trashcan then it's social value
changes.
The floppy disk example also jogged my own IntPoV's. If the floppy
disk contained a virus then the disk is supporting a life form, even
though that life form is created by IntPoV's. This would appear to
be a level above the Intellectual level as the computer virus displays
nearly all of the values of organic life but its environmental starting
point is different to BioPoV's.
"Making history, it turned out, was quite easy.
It was what got written down.
It was as simple as that!"
Sir Sam Vimes.
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