Hettinger (hettingr@iglou.com)
Wed, 24 Sep 1997 02:37:21 +0100
I feel awkward coming into this conversation, as I don't really know
where it started. I have skimmed the group's mail, and come to the
conclusion that if I wait until I fully understand what's been said,
I'll never get to join in.
In several different threads, I noticed questions that seemed to be
wanting a concept, one that I kept wanting to refer to in order to speak
to your ideas. I'll try to throw it out, and then we can see if we can
use it.
Magnus seems to have asked, speaking of AI and robots (although I don't
have the original letter),
How can static Intellectual patterns arise directly out of static
Inorganic patterns (matter-machines) skipping two levels altogether?
There's a concept called mediation that seems useful here. I first
encountered it in education theory, studying Lev S. Vygotsky. (I have
not studied this to the extent I would like. I'm only a beginner at
formal educational theory.) I hope I can do justice to it and its
application to MoQ. Please take all of this as starting points for
discussion.
I'll start with a quotation from Marx.
Tools created in the process of work lead to particular production
systems and social organizations. Thus, human labor transforms
both nature and human experience.
It looks like he is saying that a lower-level object (the tool)
transforms society. However, if we look at that tool from Pirsig's
perspective of a tool being the concrete embodiment of an idea, then we
can see that is an idea of a pattern of work, embodied in the tool, and
passed on to people to use, that mediates the transformation in social
patterns and nature (biological and inorganic patterns).
Lev Vygotsky, who lived in much the same social and intellectual
environment as Marx, took this idea and went further. He said that
Psychological tools (rather than tools of work) bring about the
transformation of human consciousness.
This parallel statement, when viewed from MoQ, shows that Vygotsky was
working on, and defining, how the intellectual level is created and how
it functions, again, through mediation, exactly of what and how is
another interesting puzzle. But within the MoQ, they are parallel, and
that, to me, is exciting.
Let's drop back down to the interaction between social and
intellectual. It's more concrete.
Vygotsky's socio-historical theory of psychological development includes
the ideas that speech (and therefore thought) is a social pattern that
has been mediated by something particularly human (that MoQ would call
intellectual patterns). The body of mediated social patterns has become
culture and knowledge. Speech, a social pattern, is observed in
biological humans, but it is not contained in the biological level. It
is not an innate biological skill, but is a set of patterns contained in
the society. So is knowledge. [I would go further and say that speech
and knowledge support both static intellectual patterns and the
capability of forming new ones, but are not part of the intellectual
level, either. This is not Vygotsky speaking here at all.--MH]
As a practical matter, mediation can be deliberately used, and managed.
Vygotsky uses the term "sign", which may turn out to be synonymous for a
static intellectual pattern that is chosen to be the agent of
mediation. The act of making the choice would seem to be a Quality
experience. A person makes a list for himself or others to follow, and
that is use of a sign--deliberate mediation. A number used as a label
or instruction is also a sign.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's how I think mediation is useful in MoQ.
When a pattern in any level experiences an interaction with a higher
level pattern or a Dynamic Quality Event, the lower level pattern is
changed (in substance or direction).
For instance, in Lev Vygotsky's socio-historical perspective, the social
level has been changed by the mediation of intellectual patterns. It is
not possible to see the original "pure" social level any more.
Intellectual patterns throughout Human history have altered the social
patterns so that much human behavior seems to be intellectually-based.
In fact, most of it is purely social, but the patterns themselves have
been influenced by intellectual.
Mediation played a part here, and the original link between biology and
society has been lost. You can't get to human society from biology.
[The structure is not only a standing structure (as in standing up from
the base), but has some element of "hanging" from the higher level. A
paradigm shift happens when the new structure reconnects with the base
in a different spot. Just skip this if it doesn't work for you, but
sometimes I can really see all this. It seems physical.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let me play through another example, one suggest by the group--the
Internet.
The physical Internet is an Inorganic-level pattern that has been formed
by the mediation of intellectual, social, and biological level
patterns. There is no way that the organic components of the
internet (data packets traveling thru phone cables to servers and little
dots showing up on my screen) could have developed from the inorganic
components directly. It was through the mediation of biological
patterns (ex. people working in the computer factories meeting their
needs for food and shelter) who put the physical components into place
that the new inorganic patterns were formed (electricity, keyboards,
cables), etc.
At the same time, it was a very complex system of social patterns that
made it possible for those biological patterns (people) to meet their
survival needs by putting in work time and receiving a paycheck. This
system has been formed (over time) by the mediation of intellectual and
social patterns on lower levels.
Many different social patterns have had their effect on the inorganic
web called the Internet. When Diana decided to go to the trouble of
facilitating this group, she deliberately set up a social pattern,
invited us to conform to it, which we do because it allows us better
control over some valued aspect of our lives. The social patterns that
resulted were mediated (changed, formed) by intellectual patterns,
including programming languages, Pirsig's books and Diana's thoughts.
And if, as we probably believe, it was Dynamic Quality that mediated the
creation of the MoQ, an intellectual pattern, it is also worth
remembering that Dynamic Quality has its effect at all parts of this
process.
Sometimes, the new organic pattern is one in which the mediating forces
(patterns? Vectors?) no longer have much visible interaction any more.
The patterns needed the mediation of higher levels in order to have been
set, but not to be maintained. They can be maintained (often) from
below. (This, I believe, might be applicable to the problem mentioned
at the beginning--the apparent skipping of levels, where a link actually
did exist at some point.)
When, after being altered by mediation, patterns cannot be adequately
maintained from below, other cross-level changes occur. (For example,
current practices of human society cannot always be maintained by the
natural environment, and things happen because of that.) It is in this
way that lower level patterns can effect change in higher level
patterns, but I don't think this is the same as mediation. Lower levels
support (or do not support) higher, but perhaps only higher levels
mediate lower.
At any point in this process, both when patterns are balanced or when
they overreach and are broken, Dynamic Quality is an active agent of
redirection. One aspect of this that I personally think is worth
pursuing is that it seems to me that a balance (some sort of
gravity-like equilibrium) between patterns or streams of patterns, is
most likely to allow the influence of Dynamic Quality, whereas in
situations where patterns overreach or are broken, the new direction is
likely to be set by conforming to the direction of lower-level
patterns. I think this has something to do with the question of why
new different lower levels are not easily formed.
I'm aware that I just brought in some undefined thing about direction,
vectors, and influence. This seems integral to this concept, but I
can't define it. I would like to see it defined.
I guess it's time to take a breather. This was intended to be short.
I hope it doesn't seem rude to be dropping this big thing on you, but
once I get started, I can't find the place to stop. Your discussions
have started all kinds of things spinning in my head again.
Is mediation a useful concept? Does it help anybody?
Maggie Hettinger
http://members.iglou.com/hettingr
PS. Note that the big assumption is that all of this begins with "I
think…"
-- post message - mailto:skwok@spark.net.hk unsubscribe/queries - mailto:diana@asiantravel.com homepage - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4670
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