LS Level 5 ....?


Horse (horse@wasted.demon.nl)
Sat, 5 Sep 1998 04:02:31 +0100


Hi Magnus, Bo and Squad

HORSE WROTE:
"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."

MAGNUS WROTE:
"I don't think that's actually a level above the intellectual. In my
essay I argue that such viruses are alive as you say, but their
universe is built using other inorganic building blocks. They have
not quarks and neutrinos but ones and zeros, they have not our
laws of nature but the instruction set of the CPU. Here's where the
MoQ is so powerful, it is a framework for two very different physics
using the same metaphysics.
BTW, if the virus would be of a level above the intellectual, it would
mean that it would be more moral than humans. Second, I don't
think any level are aware of levels above it, so we wouldn't
intellectually be aware of such a level."

BO WROTE:
"But here's a most important point. Magnus (in his reply to Horse)
spaks of Intellect being unable to perceive a level above itself,
and that's correct for Intellect as such, but a human being is not
confined to Intellect if it perceives Quality! See, when we are
focussed on the Biological level - in utter distress f.example. - we
don't perceive the social values and when totally in the Social mode
we are oblivious to Intellect ( a Kamikaze pilot didn't
give a damn about his individual welfare, everything that
counted was the fate of the Empire). No, we will be able to
perceive values beyond intellect ----we already are."

HORSE:

There are some distinctions which need to made clear with regard
to another discernible level.
1) Awareness of the patterns of that level as opposed to experience
of the patterns.
2) There is also the morality issue of a higher level as Magnus
points out.

A lower level can certainly be aware of a higher level - it must be as
there is conflict between levels and the manifestation of that
conflict forces awareness. (The form of awareness I'm referring to is
not intellectual awareness!!).
Humans experience intellectual value directly - this is what creates
us as persons - along with social, biological and inorganic value.
But each level (or combination of levels) is responsible for the
creation of the next level. Higher 'static' levels emerge from lower
'static' levels through the action of dynamic quality.
A lower level is not composed of the patterns of value of the higher
level so there is no direct experience of it. We do not partake of
that level.

I don't see that it is a problem that patterns of value at a level
higher than intellect are more moral than those of intellect - but this
depends on how you think of it. According to MoQ it is immoral for
a lower level to control or destroy a higher level, but it is also
foolish/dangerous for the higher level to destroy the level from which
it emerged. But the virus is only one such form of life at that level.
Consider another lifeform - The Internet. The implications of the 'net
as a part of level 5 are enormous.

Horse

"Making history, it turned out, was quite easy.
It was what got written down.
It was as simple as that!"
Sir Sam Vimes.

--
homepage - http://www.moq.org/lilasquad
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