Hi All
Temporary Lurk Mode OFF
On 24 Sep 99, at 19:26, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> 1) Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns?
>
> 2) Were the 4 levels of the MOQ discovered or created?
To me the above look suspiciously like those damnable Either/Or
formulations that I continually try and circumvent by invoking a
Both/And answer. Today is no exception.
> 1) Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns?
Intellectual patterns of value include the 3 other levels inasmuch as
Intellectual patterns describe and structure what is already there. If
the MoQ is an evolutionary metaphysics (or a metaphysics which
underlies an evolutionary system) then Intellect must have evolved
FROM something. That intellect can describe both the other levels
AND itself is testimony to its power. Recursion is a powerful thing
but very difficuly to handle well - ask any Lisp or Prolog coder.
Handled badly one is in danger of disappearing up one's own
Aristotle!!
I suppose another way to look at the levels is not to assume that
they are seperate entities (i.e. objective things) but separate
attributes evolving from a single source - Quality. Each is an
emergent property of the former, each containing the former and
being contained by the former. Pirsig says something like this when
he says that Intellect contains the Inorganic which contains the
Intellect. This is the basis of emergence - the higher levels may not
exist without the base from which they emerge but are
simultaneously independent of the lower levels.Their separation into
discrete levels is an expression of Intellectual value. Intellectual value
'understands' their existence, partitions them and describes them, so
the levels are both Intellectual patterns AND patterns independent of
intellectual value.
I would disagree with some on this forum when answering the
question:
"Seen in the light of the MOQ, what is it that is described in the last
part of ZMM (The Greeks). Is it the emergence of SOM, the"coming
of age" of the Intellectual level, or...?"
and say that what emerged in ancient Greece was not _true_
intellectual value but some form of prototype. Certainly some form of
Intellectual value was involved but not what I would describe as the
Intellectual value we know today. When Intellect begins to
comprehend its own existence and considers itself valuable in it's
own right only then can it be said to have "come of age". This is a
very recent event. But, to coin a now hackneyed phrase "I could be
wrong".
> 2) Were the 4 levels of the MOQ discovered or created?
Tricky one this! Intellectual Value is one of the 4 levels. But if the
levels are a creation of Intellectual value then how did Intellectual
value appear. So if Intellectual value is created, as one of the four
levels of patterns of value, then what created the Intellectual patterns
that created the Intellectual patterns - and don't cop-out and recite
the DQ mantra.
Without thinking too deeply about it, to say that Intellectual patterns
of Value created themselves, without some basis from which
Intellectual value could be created, introduces something of a
paradox. This is not a problem of recursion as any recursive process
has to start from some identifiable base principle/assertion or
whatever.
Intellectual patterns of Value (of which the MoQ is one example)
provide the basis for discovering their own existence but were created
by an emergent process from Social patterns of value, which
emerged from Biological patterns etc. So the existence of the levels
was discovered after Intellectual value was created and in turn
discovered its own existence. The recursive base is the emergence
of the intellectual level as an identifiable and independent attribute of
Quality.
Make sense?
Horse
Temporary Lurk Mode ON
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
