Horse (horse@wasted.demon.nl)
Wed, 9 Sep 1998 01:53:53 +0100
Hi Glove 'n' Squad
GLOVE:
> Horse, while i am not familar enough with computer virus' to say if they are
> true life forms or not, it seems to me that you are looking at this question
> from a subject/object type of thinking rather than a Quality PoV.
Not at all. As I see it the computer virus fulfils all the pre-requisites
to class it as a true life form. They are ubiquitous. They reproduce
and propagate, moving from computer to computer. They produce a
representation of themselves in binary code - similar to DNA. They
hijack the metabolism of their host to carry out their functions (as
biological virus's commandeer the molecular metabolism of infected
cells. They respond to stimuli in their environment. They mutate.
They evolve.
The main difference between a computer virus and a biological virus
is the environment they inhabit. This environment is an emergent
level of intellectual patterns of value - call it cyberspace or
whatever. They are the early stages of a new level of PoV's. More
inhabitants will join them as Level 5 patterns evolve. Intellect is the
parent base for this new level. I'm sure most creations of
intellectual PoV's are unhappy about it - but that's life :)
GLOVE:
> subject/object thinking uses a linear type of progression rather than an
> all-space-filling type of progression used by Quality thinking. for me,
> Quality thinking entails looking at the whole picture while still keeping in
> mind the locality of the Quality Event.
Why do you think I'm not looking at the whole picture. Incidentally,
my main fields of interest are MoQ, computing and Artificial Life -
not necessarily in that order. I also collect virus code for a hobby,
currently possessing about 600 or so - ok so I'm a sad git!
GLOVE:
> looking at the problem from a Quality PoV, the computer virus is a Quality
> Event which has arisen because it has taken advantage of high value
> situations existing in the inorganic level of the computer disk. these
> values have been organized by the next level, the biological layer from
> which life arises, in such a way that the inorganic level are organized by
> the biological level. any further discussion of the virus being 'alive' is
> subject/object type thinking, in my opinion. since the virus is dynamically
> static within the disk, it could be considered alive in the same way
> electricity could be considered alive in a circuit board. its the inclusion
> of Dynamic Quality which allows the virus to do what it does as itself, the
> very same way DQ allows us to do what we do as ourselves.
Hang on. As far as I'm aware, computer virus's don't write
themselves. Intellectual PoV's have created the necessary
conditions and environment in which virus's and ALife are beginning
to thrive. These thing are different from AI's in that they start from
the bottom up and evolve. They are part of connectionist systems,
which are closely related to self organising complex systems.
Floppy disks are mere periphery. A stepping stone from one
system to another. Many viruses propagate via the internet. As far
as I'm aware electricity doesn't attach itself to the programs of a
computer and then zip off to another one as soon as it gets a
chance. DQ assists the virus in much the same way that DQ
assists other PoV's - it explores possibilty.
GLOVE:
> in subject/object thinking, the inorganic layer and the biological layers
> are objects, while the social and intellect layers are subjects. what we
> sometimes forget is the 'between' that exists. my point of view is that the
> 'between' is morally of higher value than either subject or object, yet it
> is so inconsequential that we tend to ignore it altogether, unless we change
> our point of view to that of Quality.
I've been blathering on about the transition between the levels for
ages - saying that this is where the interesting part of the MoQ
exists. I'm not sure that it is of higher moral value, per se, but as
with fractals, the transition area is highly dynamic. Inconsequential
it is not.
GLOVE:
> 'between' exists as moral conflicts in the MOQ and since we all tend to
> think in subject/object terms to some extent, the moral conflicts that arise
> can sometimes be difficult to put into a Quality context...but i would say
> that the computer virus, like everything else, also is composed of the 4
> static levels as well as Dynamic Quality, and it is this inclusion of the
> Dynamic in the virus that makes it appear to fit no other level, until that
> Dynamic Quality is realized to exist by forming Quality agreements with the
> conceptual nature of reality. in other words, the 'between' of the computer
> virus is more Dynamic than that of, say, this email, but it is not
> indicative of a 5th level any more than the internet would be.
If you mean that that the layer boundaries exist as moral tensions
then I would tend to agree with you. As I see it, the computer virus
lives at the Level 4/5 boundary. It also possesses PoV's of the
lower levels. There is a moral tension between IntPoV's and L5
PoV's and this creates the virus. The Internet is firmly in L5. I would
relate the Internet to fungi, some of which are so vast that we fail to
see them. The Internet is so pervasive, so huge and so powerful
that it is almost invisible. Think about it! Who controls the Internet?
Where is it situated? It is a single, huge organism that is growing
at a stupendous rate. It's roots are in the intellectual level, but it's
body is pure L5 PoV's.
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 unsubscribe/queries - mailto:lilasquad@moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:43:46 CEST