Hi Matt Matt Kundert wrote: > Matt: A nice taxonomy. I guess my question would be what the use would be of > extending social patterns all the way down to cells. The trouble with the > levels is that Pirsig created four out of simplicity, but the more we think > about them, particularly when fitting in non-human animals, the more being > limited to just four seems pernicious. And the trouble with discussing them > is that there are few rules for figuring out what the best way is to go on > them. Once we toss fidelity to Pirsig overboard, what's the criteria for > success in drawing up a set of explanations like this?
Extending the social level down to cells (or even a bit further) has at least two benefits. First, you can much better explain why things like anthills, beehives and cells work as they do without having to resort to some fluffy biological level that seems to rule everything from cells to apes. Most people think it's strange to extend the social level as I do, but I just think it's much worse to extend the biological level, because that's the only alternative. You said it yourself above "when fitting in non-human animals, the more being limited to just four seems pernicious." It seems Pirsig left a giant hole between his biological level and his social, and this hole are by default and without much thought filled by the biological level, when it's much more logical to fill it with the social. And why is it more logical? Because if we start with Pirsig's "definition" of the biological level (from the SODV paper) "senses of touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste", then try to explain the workings of anthills, wolf packs or even why single cells started to combine into multi-cell plants and animals, using those (or similar) senses. Compare that job with doing the opposite, filling up the hole left by Pirsig with social value. That's much easier. Social value are (again from the SODV paper) "institutions as family, church and government". The similarities between those and an anthill, a wolf pack or a collection of cells are striking. The job is already done. > I would always suggest to people that if they are going to tinker with > Pirsig, particularly with the levels, to be as explicit as you can about > _why_ you suggest the things you do, why you would say that biological > patterns _are_ senses, which on its face seems a little anthropomorphic, or > why cells have social patterning. We can use the categories well enough, as > you did, but why would we use them? They are a little counter-intuitive, to > both common sense and Pirsigian common sense, so the question should be > faced, "Why take this understanding, as opposed to others?" You might sense > it as better, but not everyone may have that sense. That has a pretty simple answer, but it entails a big job. The answer is the same as Pirsig used in Lila "They are exhaustive. That's all there are. If you construct an encyclopedia of four topics - Inorganic, Biological, Social and Intellectual - nothing is left out." The problem we've seen with both Pirsig's and other definitions of the levels I've seen, is that plenty of things *are* left out. That's one the main reasons I wrote an essay about this ~10 years ago. Not sure if you read it, it's in the MoQ.org forum at http://www.moq.org/forum/magnus/magnus.html > For instance, I suggested it was a little odd for you to say that ants are > _not_ held together by gravity since they obviously are, and you replied > flatly "False." You then went into your descriptions of why that is the > case, but truth and falsity are odd concepts to wield at this level of > abstraction, for what we are dealing with are entirely different languages of > splitting up phenomena. Claims of truth and falsity occur inside those > languages. Think of Pirsig's analytic knife at the beginning of ZMM: saying > a movement of the knife is false or true doesn't seem to apply. Yes, yes, yes, but the gravity you were referring to is very likely to be the exact same gravity I was referring to. And that was the only assumption I need to make when falsifying your original statement. In fact, I think it's pretty safe to say that the inorganic level is simply what we mean by the area of physics today, except quantum mechanics. I've wanted to make a new level out of QM for quite some time, I wrote some arguments aimed at Pirsig about that several years ago (it was actually comments on his comments on Lila's Child) but it seems he never got them, or never replied. Here are some extracts: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The quantum level Last month, we discussed "time" on MoQ Focus. This subject really triggered a need for a quantum level for me. I wrote: "Quantum particles simply don't know, nor care, what time is. Time is something that inorganic patterns are bound by, quantum patterns are not. Just as hunger is quite essential for biological patterns (to avoid), but for inorganic patterns the concept of hunger is unknown." and "Now, take time. Time is one of the rules, or qualities that inorganic patterns obey, or value. Gravity is another. Then, take taste. Taste is one of the most basic rules, or qualities that biological patterns obey, or value. Does anybody see the analogy? With taste, we know where it comes from. Or rather, we know what inorganic processes that causes us to taste, we still can't say much more about what the biological sensation of taste is, more than just taste. With time on the other hand, we don't know Jack Schitt, (http://www.twistedhumor.com/program_files/knowjackschitt.html :) But I think we can find out much more if we just take a deep look into the quantum level to discover the processes behind the concept of time. As I've said before, quantum patterns don't obey time, just as inorganic patterns don't obey taste. In other words, time is created by the quantum level and valued by the inorganic. We can see that much, does anybody have a suggestion as to how we can see more?" also "Some of you have raised objections against my quantum level ideas regarding time but I frankly don't know why. I agree that time belongs to the same level as space, gravity, mass and so on. I see evidence for this in all the physical formulas containing different kinds of inorganic patterns, like e = m*c^2, v = s/t, etc. I don't know if you take such formulas as evidence but I think we should. Such formulas are valid as long as we stay in the inorganic realm, but when we approach the quantum realm, regardless of whether that means reaching relativistic speeds or sub-atom sized particles, they aren't applicable anymore. What I'm trying to say with my quantum level ideas is that these inorganic patterns, or values, depends on lower level patterns. That is one of the most basic rules of the MoQ so why should time, space or gravity be exceptions? Further, to ask questions like, "what is time?", or "what is taste?", is to ask, "what patterns does time depend on?" and "what patterns does taste depend on?". With taste, we know one answer. Chemical processes gives input to sensors relaying information to the brain. The answer isn't really an answer to the question, "what is taste?", but it does answer the question, "what patterns does taste depend on?". With time on the other hand, we don't even have that second answer. Nor do we have it for gravity, space or any other inorganic pattern. That's why I'm digging into a lower level. I think we would understand the inorganic realm much better if we knew some of these dependencies. And I also believe we would be wise to use the MoQ in the process." and "I don't see why a quantum level is so hard to accept. The quantum level created time, space, gravity, etc. The inorganic level created hydrogen, helium, carbon etc. using those quantum level building blocks. The biological level created plants and animals using the building blocks of the inorganic level and so on. It fits perfectly into the MoQ and it also shows how utterly different the levels are. It shows that the phrase "uses building blocks of a lower level" doesn't necessarily mean to use "building blocks" as in "stuff with mass". The building blocks can be something completely different, like time or space. Further, I've been studying some physics the last few days and I'm not being discouraged at all. For one thing, a separate quantum level explains the wave-particle dualism. The wave view of electromagnetism is simply the inorganic value and the particle view is the quantum value. A different example of the same dualism is taste, only there are different levels involved. The biological view is the taste we feel when we put a bar of chocolate in our mouth, the inorganic view is the chemical composition of chocolate. Depending on which level we use to measure, we see different results. This has been bothering scientists for quite some time but the MoQ (with a quantum level) explains it. (Quite beautifully IMHO)." and at last "the quantum world is so vastly different from the inorganic. I really think it's just as different from the inorganic as the biological from the inorganic. The laws of nature simply doesn't exist anymore, just as the laws of biology simply doesn't exist in the inorganic world. It's that simple." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Now, within your pattern of thinking, what I said was false. On the other > hand, my little comment was designed to cast doubt on your approach, because > it often seems like you're saying that ants don't have inorganic value. It > seemed like you were sitting phenomena squarely inside a single level, which > Pirsig doesn't do, and in fact I think his not doing that is specifically > designed to combat some pernicious kinds of reductionism. Implicit in my > comment was this explicit prodding: hey, careful or you'll toss over hard-won > insights of Pirsig's. Nope. Of course ants have inorganic value, that's what keeping them on the ground (via gravity), but that gravity is not what keeping one ant together (as opposed from falling apart). If we take away gravity, i.e. we send the ant to the ISS, it will still be an ant. All legs will be attached etc. I very much realize the importance of that insight, and that's very much a part of my level hierarchy. In fact, it seems I rely on the level dependency much harder than most other people, including Pirsig. > When describing the levels, I think the first thing we should do is isolate > the least common denominator of the level, the "DNA" of the level, so to > speak. Listing examples only goes part of the way because a > definition/description of the levels need to list how it includes what it > includes and how it _doesn't_ include other things--differentiation from the > other levels needs to be in the forefront because that is the most pressing > problem with the very notion of levels. > > Pirsig's general project is based on at least two assumptions: 1) reality is > evolving and 2) it occasionally evolves new pieces that cannot be understood > in the terms of the older pieces. This isn't a new project with Pirsig. One > of the things that I think Pirsig added some insight to was that 1) not only > does the new piece evolve out of the old, but the new piece rests on the > older ones--it is not a separate piece, like a rock and an orange, but > something that requires the other pieces, like the American government and > the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches. And 2) the older levels > don't recognize the existence of the newer levels. This second proves, I > find, to be a particularly difficult axiom to understand, and produces varied > interpretations, but I think it is very important. That's exactly what I tried to do in my essay, to find the least common denominator of each level by finding out *what* a level is, i.e. what makes an experience a new level? Actually, using that expression "what makes an experience a new level", it's pretty easy to reformulate it to form the basis of level searching. You have found a new level when an experience can't be explained using the already established levels. > My basic problem with the social/intellectual distinction is that it doesn't > make a lot of sense with the notion of DQ as pre-intellectual experience. > Does that mean DQ is social/biological/inorganic experience? No, of course > not, but it does show a little equivocation on the terminology Pirsig was > wielding and I think Pirsig relied on some of that equivocation to get the > philosophical effects he wanted. I've also seen some other such ambiguities, but I think those are removed in my version of the MoQ. The hole between the biological and social level is one, another example is the SODV paper, where Pirsig shows the 2 upper levels as subjective and the 2 lower as objective. But on the other hand, each quality event consists of one subject and one object, and in one quality event, there can be only one type of patterns involved. So there's either two inorganic patterns, or two biological, etc. These two positions are completely contradictory. I know he only uses the "subjective" vs "objective" boxes in the SODV paper to make it easier for new people to get a first grip on the levels, but it's so completely wrong so that "first grip" destroys any chance of ever getting it right again. Magnus Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
