----- Original Message -----
From: "Arlo Bensinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 5:34 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Regarding The Fundamental Nature of The Intellectual Level
[Marsha]
It's an interesting story, isn't it?
[Arlo]
Yes, the socio-cultural evolution of humans is fascinating. I try to
re-read parts of the Columbia History of the World every so often if for
no other reason that to place in perspective "modern life".
It's your choice on what ever plate your static is served.
[Marsha]
Please describe and explain the deliberation and purposefulness of each
level? If you would enjoy adding 'freedom', be my guest.
[Arlo]
Patterns on every level have an agency of action that is both enabled and
constrained by the particular level of that pattern. Atoms can only "act"
inorganically. Possums can only "act" biologically. But a possum has a far
wider range of agency that an atom. A possum's movements and actions to,
say, satiate hunger are deliberate and purposeful towards those ends.
While the possum cannot "act" socially (say formulate a plan to purchase
some apples from the local grocer, or decide to accept his hunger in lieu
of a larger meal "later"), when the possum is hungry it will move
deliberately and purposefully to act on its hunger. When it rummages, it
does so with the deliberate intent of finding something edible. When it
catches the scent of food, it moves deliberately to find the source of the
smell.
Obviously, these deliberations appear unsophisticated to the human who can
act socially. Human can use language (social), the possum cannot. Humans
can plan and deliberate a course of action beforehand, the possum cannot.
But along the way, neither the social human or the biological possum is
"automated". The possum is responding in immediate dynamic ways to changes
and experiences it encounters along the way. The point is that both the
possum and the human are acting "deliberately" and "purposefully", even
though the possum's actions are not nearly as sophisticated as the humans.
Okay.
"Freedom" is simply a word to describe the range of agency open to the
"individual", whether its an individual possum, an individual human or an
individual atom. Obviously, the range of agency increases as one moves up
the MOQ scale, that's the point to the evolutionary hierarchy, to engender
greater and greater ranges of agency, of freedom. But there is freedom on
all the levels, and that is important. Again, it is not
"freedom/no-freedom" when comparing levels but "freedom/greater-freedom",
or better "agency/greater-agency".
This sounds like you're addressing someone else's criticism.
[Marsha]
Are you equating 'intellect' with the Intellectual Level? But more to the
point, I'm more interested in the fact that intellect invents the
concepts.
[Arlo]
No. And maybe I break from Pirsig on this point, but again I see
"intellectual patterns" as a sort of "meta-intellect", as patterns that
emerge as social symbols become objects of inquiry themselves. And this is
a matter of word confusion as well. If we use the term "intellect" to
refer to the manipulation of symbols in the mind, then this intellect is
both a social and "intellectual" level feature. The difference (for me) is
that while the manipulation of symbols on the social level involved using
abstract symbols to enable social activity, the manipulation of symbols on
the intellectual level involves the examination of symbols themselves.
Thus, coming up with quantification descriptors to describe variances in
amount of apples "one", "two" and "seven" was a social level symbolic
manipulation. However, "mathematics", that became interested in the
symbols "one", "two" and "seven" as objects of inquiry themselves is an
intellectual level of symbolic manipulation.
Sounds good to me.
[Marsha]
What do you mean by the expression "its just that the range of agency
increasing exponentially as one moves up the levels". What exactly does
this mean?
[Arlo]
I think I may have answered this above (or tried to), but simply that the
repertoire of options any "thing" has open to it depends on the level that
"thing" is on. A possum has a much narrower range of agency (repertoire of
actions) than a human, but it also has a considerably wider range of
agency than at atom.
I agree.
[Marsha]
You're discussing exerting power and influence. I'm after how it's all a
wisp of momentary mental illusion which can represent any number of
different points-of-view.
[Arlo]
What I was trying to show is that "conformity" is not a feature of any one
level, it is a feature of them all. Those who say "the social level is
conformity, the intellectual level is freedom" are simply wrong. As I
said, the thrust of ZMM was about the conformity of western intellectual
patterns. Both the social level and the intellectual level afford the
"individual" with certain freedoms, and both bring with it a force of
conformity.
The Social level often repeats patterns because "things have always been
done that way" and the reasoning has long gone. Peter L. Berger and Thomas
Luckmann's book, 'The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the
Sociology of Knowledge' was a first clue to this lack of awareness. I would
expect the Intellectual Level to include interest in and awareness of
underlying, influencial patterns.
[Marsha]
To me the individual is one of those illusions. Then a collective could
only be???
[Arlo]
An illusion, of course.
[Marsha]
No individual. No collective. For me, ever-changing, collections of
overlapping, interrelated, inorganic, biological, social and intellectual,
static patterns of value.
[Arlo]
Absolutely. What I was pointing, what I said was, "depending on the
context of one's focus". One can zoom in an conceptually identify "an
individual biological pattern", but this "individual pattern" is not only
made of smaller individual patterns acting collectively, but it's
collective activity creates higher patterns.
Yes, I agree. There are similarities between these collections of patterns
that give them strength, but also differences to a lesser or greater degree
based on experience. And I think patterns are interrelated with other
patterns. I really do like the net-of-jewels model.
But, yes, I agree,
the act of "zooming" could also be seen as the act of creating illusions.
I am reminded of the motorcycle analysis in ZMM. You can divide the
motorcycle into any number of different "patterns", but none of these
patterns are "primary", that is none exist before the analytic knife
creates them.
I remember trying to flowchart the systems and components of a motorcycle.
It was frustrating, fun, and I made quite a mess of it.
I agree with much of your interpretation. It is a well written explanation.
(Meaning even I understood it.) I think it impossible to untangle a
collection of interrelated, ever-changing collection of inorganic,
biological, social and intellectual patterns, but you've made some valid
points.
Marsha
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