Jonathan B. Marder (marder@agri.huji.ac.il)
Tue, 8 Sep 1998 01:25:01 +0100
Hi Platt, Dennis, Rog, Squad,
Dennis and Rog, welcome to the LS,
First let me add my +ACI-Get Well+ACI- wishes for Ken to those already
expressed. Ken, I look forward to your return to full and active
participation in the LS.
PLATT
+AD4-The S-O-M dead ends were reached some time ago with
+AD4-Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and Goedel+IBk-s Incompleteness
+AD4-Theorem.
I would go all the way back to Occam's Razor which states that the
correct explanation is the simplest one. There is no +ACI-objective+ACI- proof
for that+ACE- It's a giant platypus - and the whole philosophy of science
sits on it. That's why we have to go outside SO thinking to justify its
use.
DENNIS
+AD4-I was thinking back to when Pirsig was talking about a native tribe
that
+AD4-had no word in there language for Time, thus Time was meaningless to
+AD4-them.
+AD4-
+AD4-I tried today to imagine not having the luxury of using time in a
+AD4-conversation, it eliminates words such as when and was and a whole
bunch
+AD4-of others.
+AD4-
+AD4-I think it is possible that if a culture did not have a clue what time
+AD4-is they are closer to dynamic Quality than say our culture who values
+AD4-time very highly. ...
It occurs to me that the distinction between dynamic and static has no
meaning without reference to time. Personally, I find it impossible to
conceive of a culture without any concept of time. I would guess that
the average dog or chimpanzee has a concept of time, even though they
also lack a word for it+ACE- Kant regarded time and space as two concepts
innate to the human mind.
In my earlier posts on potential and morality, I brought up the second
law of thermodynamics which determines the DIRECTION of change. Whereas
in Newtonian, Relativistic and Quantum Mechanics, time is completely
reversible, the +ACI-tendency to disorder+ACI- in thermodynamics is associated
with the forward passage of time. Ilya Prigogine (chaos theorist and
Nobel laureate) has suggested that it is thermodynamics which DEFINES
the flow of time. For details, look at the
http://magna.com.au/+AH4-prfbrown/chaos+AF8-02.htm web page.
The story of development of thermodynamic theory in the 18th and 19th
centuries is quite remarkable. Together with Newtons laws of motions,
they mark a shift in science from emphasis on studying things as they
ARE to studying how they CHANGE. Joule established the equivalence
between kinetic energy and heat and showed how water going over a
waterfall heats up slightly. The conservation of energy is stated in the
first law of thermodynamics. But according to this law it would be
perfectly all right for water to spontaneously drop in temperature and
squirt in the air. It is the second law which prohibits this.
A big paradox to emerge was the distinction between WORK and ENERGY.
Energy is something that systems HAVE, while work is something that is
DONE. To do work, one needs POTENTIAL which is energy in suitable form.
This is the difference between +ACI-high-grade+ACI- (high potential to do work)
and +ACI-low-grade+ACI- energy sources. I think that this assessment of the
QUALITY of energy sources is very interesting in MoQ terms.
ROG wrote:
+AD4-Pirsig's eighth chapter is where the magic of MOQ hit me with the
sudden
+AD4-insight of Dynamic Quality.The shift from subject/object to value
allows many
+AD4-of the following platypi of conventional thinking to disappear.
+AD4-Reality vs Scientific Theory
The VALUE of a theory lies in its utility, not in its truth. In effect,
a process of +ACI-natural selection+ACI- has preserved and expanded the good
theories, and disposed of the useless.
+AD4-Causation
If you dig down, you realise that causation in thermodynamic terms is
actually abstract (i.e. entropy). Most of us have great difficulty
understanding exactly what entropy is. At its crudest, the second law of
thermodynamics is a tautology which states that systems tend to change
in the direction of their tendency to change.
+AD4-The discontinuity of substance
That idea came in with the atomists and departed with quantum mechanics.
+AD4-Taking the Humanities beyond Relativism
What's wrong with relativism? I'd say that modern science has taken
everything towards relativism.
+AD4-Mind vs matter
I know that Bo won't like it, but I still find it useful to equate
+ACI-Mind+ACI- with Pirsig's Intellectual level.
Regards to all,
Jonathan
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