Steve wrote:
"Thick and thin are on a continuum. I don't see how
inorganic, biological, social and intellectual are on
a continuum"
Sometimes a couple of lines are more telling than
a thousand lines. This couple of lines of Steve above
sum up quite aptly the core of the problem. Clever!
Steve, llow me to rephrase your paragraph as a
question:
I can easily see that thick and thin are on a
continuum; why is it so difficult to see inorganic,
biological, social and intellectual on a continuum?
If we could put our finger on the 'Why?' may be an
answer will emerge.
It's not only 'thick and thin' that are easily seen
as a continuous progression but also 'light and
heavy', 'cold and hot', 'black and white' 'pretty and
ugly', 'reasonable and absurd', and a host of other
pairs that belong to our ordinary, day-to-day
experiences. What do all those have in common?
Each one of all the pairs above can be expressed
in terms of a common property or attribute, or, even
better, a 'variable', (as used in Maths); thus
'thickness' for the first, 'lightness' for the second,
'coldness', 'ugliness', 'reasonableness', for the last
three. If we were to denote these various properties
by Y and assume that Y varies for all cases between 0
and 1, then "we can easily see" that the antonyms in
each pair represent the extremes (0 or 1) of the
variable Y. It is only in the extremes (close to 0
and close to 1) that the words appear to be exclusive.
By exclusive I mean here: If Pretty, Not Ugly; IF
Absurd, Not Reasonable, and so forth. Nevertheless we
can propose a vast number of examples for things 'not
quite thin' or 'not too cold' or 'almost pretty' or
'absurd to some extent'.
We could represent the above visually by an axis
of Y where the degree, or extent, of Y increases from
left to right, (hoping that the image doesn't get
distorted in cyberspace) thus:
[ 0 ------------------------ 1 ]
Y
The Aristotelian propositions of Formal Logic,
hold strictly only for the cases which could be
identified with the extremes 0 or 1 (If prettiness = 0
then, Not Pretty;; If Not-Pretty, it cannot be
Pretty). Most of the cases encountered in the ways we
humans experience the world are in-between 0 and 1.
Now, let's approach the MOQ levels. Why the above is
so difficult to see for the distinction between
'inorganic' and 'biological' levels? For the simplest
reason that the categories are not expressed in terms
of the same variable. We have decided a priori that
they are different things altogether which, as such,
have nothing in common. What if 'inorganic' and
'biological' were just extreme cases of a common
property, attribute or variable?
Not too far fetched really. Suppose we call Y
in this case 'Viability', (in Biology, viability of
cells and tissues refers to the extent to which those
cells and tissues are living). Needless to say, "a
word is just a word"; one could use 'aliveness' or
'vitality' and they'd do just as well. A clear case
of 'inorganic' (say, a sugar solution) will be
placed at viability = 0; a clear case of 'biological'
(say, a bacterial suspension) would be at Y=1 . What's
new? What's new is that a bacterial colony kept at low
temperature (they cannot grow, nor multiply) is in the
gray zone of viability ( biological to some extent but
also inorganic to some extent). Thus we do with all
intermediate cases: virus crystals, supercomputers,
spores, dormant seeds, artificial life systems and
many others.
In the case of the borderline between
'biological' and 'social' levels, we may use similar
considerations: we assume that, in clear cases, they
represent the extremes of a common variable Y and
dubious, or vague, cases are to be placed somewhere
in-between. Let's use say, 'sociableness', the
relative tendency or disposition to associate with
one's fellows. (perhaps 'social' could do just as
well). Erythrocytes, for instance, do not appear to
'socialize' at all with their fellows, that case would
be clearly biological and not at all 'social'; a clan
of monkeys would show a low degree of sociableness, an
ant colony a larger degree, a bee- hive even larger,
and so forth.
You may have noted that I haven't changed at all
say, the ant colony, neither as a thing with
independent existence, nor as a distinct pattern nor
as a experienced pattern. The said ant colony remains
the same whether inside a given MOQ level or loose
between 0 and 1. What I have expounded above is merely
a shift from Formal Logic to Fuzzy Logic.
In case someone may ask whether it should be
possible to put the four categories jointly on a
common axis. I believe it is possible in principle but
I have no idea how. Since the four MOQ levels include,
according to Pirsig, all that 'there is' in the world,
to propose such a common axis is the task of a
Metaphysics. The Metaphysics of Quality seems to
provide an answer but I'd rather leave that to others
more learned in MOQ than I am.
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