Horse (horse@wasted.demon.nl)
Sat, 4 Jul 1998 11:19:47 +0100
Hi Squad
Change Versus Permanence huh? And to think I got accused of
being minimalistic in the previous program :-)
Jonathan:
DQ - things that happen
SQ - intellectualised description of DQ.
Bo:
Change versus permanence
Attributed to Bo and Diana (I can't fine an explicit quote):
Change for the better Versus Permanence.
Expanded by Magnus:
DQ (Change) is the answer to the question:
How can anything become?
SQ (Permanence) is the answer to the question:
How can anything be?
So it's back to SOM definitions then is it? Either this OR that. One
thing as opposed to another? In the last program I made the
statement that the MoQ at its most basic is A AND NOT A and I
stick by this - no-one has come up with a decent argument against
it yet. The absolutist position is that of A OR NOT A, which is
minimalistic speak for SOM. I agree with glove that absolutes are
hard to find. The reason that they are hard to find is because they
are an intellectual structure IMPOSED upon a Quality reality. The
speed of light is a THEORETICAL construct in the same way that
all 'laws of nature' are devices that assist in the construction of a
model of reality. This seems to me to be at the root of Bo's
SOTAQI idea. Further, most of these laws that seem to be taken
as absolutes are no more than a throwback to the days when it
was a common belief that God created the universe, and that these
were His laws, merely discovered and accepted as such by mere
mortals.
Theoretical constructs are real in terms of intellectual PoV's but to
say that they constitute the rest of reality is to confuse the model
of reality with reality itself.
The statement that e=mc2 could become e=mc4 because of
relativism makes no sense, but to say that e=mc2 is not an
absolute but is an approximation, given the accuracy of any
measuring equipment, HUP, the theory of relativity, the
intention/position off the 'observer' etc. is perfectly reasonable.
Approximation and inaccuracy and are inherent. This is not
relativism but the way things are. (If we're going for lyrics Ant - It's
like that, that's the way it is)
SOM deals in absolutes and certainties at an intellectual level and
expects everything else to fit in accordingly (platypii?) - it must do,
it has no choice, GOD SAYS SO - but the MoQ recognises the
dilemma and deals with it accordingly by recogising that reality
consists of degrees of freedom, accuracy etc.
Absolutism Versus Relativism - is this the current position? Why
not just return to Subject Versus Object or Mind Versus Matter.
If we assume that it has been shown that relativism is completely
and utterly wrong, what does this do for absolutism - answer =
nothing. Absolutism must stand on its own or fall - it doesn't so
down it goes. This is so much like the Creationist and Evolutionist
debate as put forward by the Jehovah's Witnesses - if JW's
disprove the evolutionist's theories then the ONLY thing left is
Creation. Wrong!
Absolutism and relativism are not the only possibilities.
So where does A AND NOT A come in with respect to MoQ? First,
A AND NOT A does not mean an incomprehensible mish mash of
this and that, but a gradient between one state and another with no
artificially imposed start/finish demarcation. Second, A AND NOT
A are complementary not divisory.
Quality/Reality (all of it) consists of DQ AND SQ in such a way
that neither is separable from the other in any meaningful/real way.
SQ is what remains after DQ has done it's stuff and [SQ] is a
gradual degradation towards dissolution (imagine a decaying
oscillation - a ringing).
DQ is PRE-INTELLECTUAL. Change is the difference between one
state and another and as such [MoQ, SOM, Intellectually
perceived] human knowledge of it is INTELLECTUAL. Words such
as change and infinty used in this context are an abstraction of
something humans are incapable of experiencing intellectually.
There must be some sort of proviso or ackowledgement of this.
Intellectualisation lags DQ temporally. 'Established' patterns (SQ)
are types of memories. Inorganic memory = substance, Biological
memory = Genes, Social Memory = Tradition, Intellectual memory
= Ideas. None of these persist eternally so are not permanent but
transitory. The transition from DQ to dissolution is gradual not
instantaneous (is there any such thing as instantaneous - except
as an intellectual construct). Permanence is another SOM
construct which stems from the inabilty of the majority of the
human race to take into account periods of duration greater than a
few hundreds of years. NOTHING lasts forever.
Pre-Intellectual Quality is the intellectually unknowable but is the
state towards which the mystics and shamen aspire through
dissolution of self. (Consider the "While living be a dead man..."
passage in Lila).
Post-Intellectual Quality (SQ) is the intellectually knowable
patterns of value that provides the basis for existence.
Pirsig made the point that DQ on its own is chaos, whereas SQ on
its own is stagnation and death of all patterns. It is the combination
of the two that is Quality.
DQ and SQ are complementary aspects of the same thing - A AND
NOT A.
Finally, Theo's post neatly encapsulates the better/worse aspect of
DQ - better = change = moral. Which aspects/levels of SQ are
affected, and how, determines whether change is good or bad and
to what degree.
My contribution for the DQ/SQ split is:
DQ: Pre-intellectual transition from one state to another state.
SQ: Gradual decay of any system towards obscurity and
dissolution.
Horse
"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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