Krimel On 24 July you wrote:
> [Bo] > Your understanding of the Quality Idea is so weak that it's hard to > argue with you. > [Krimel] > It is this kind of condescending crap that leads us onto the > psycho-path, don't you think? I will continue my reply to yours of the 22th. but first; I suspect you don't "buy" the MOQ basics at all and then it's no wonder you question the tenets derived from them. From SOM seen the level hierarchy is both secondary and an unnecessary complication, about THAT I agree. It follows that our exchange is a bit "old home inmates talking"-ish but you are intelligent, well read and well everything so I will condescend som more ;-). > Among the many reasons why I regard the "levels" as secondary is that they > are not even remotely "discrete" as Pirsig claims. While the confusion is > most obvious at the intellectual level, it exists even at the inorganic > level which is not "discrete" from the biological level at least not in > the way Pirsig frames it. All life on earth is based on carbon chemistry. > In fact carbon chemistry is its own branch of chemistry. It is called > organic chemistry. But Pirsig places it on the inorganic level. One of the > problems some of our intellectually challenged brethren here on the MoQ > have with evolutionary theory is how life begins. However and whenever the > division between the living and the nonliving began it certainly involved > organic chemistry and when we look at life itself on a molecular level we > see no clear distinction between what is alive and what is inert. Here we actually agree, my position is that if followed far (deep) enough all levels dissolves into the lower one and that this is in agreement with the MOQ about all levels being out of its parent and "living at home" at first. The discretion only occurs after it is has left home and regarding the inorganic-organic relationship already at the bacteria stage the dead/living distinction is clear. > The "distinction" between the biological and social levels is equally > arbitrary and certainly not discrete. Social organization or the mutual > interdependence of individual members of a species is an evolutionary > strategy employed by many species in nature. From coral to ants and bees > up through primates many organisms owe their survival to mutual support, > division of labor and cooperative behavior. This is social value in its (biological) parent's service. Once Magnus Berg pursued the social term into absurdity and beyond, but once social value is "off on a purpose of its own" as a static level a totally different picture emerges. > Pirsig chose to specifically exclude all of this and include only > humans at the social level. In so doing he misses out on the > evolutionary function of social structures and on the origins of human > social interaction that are so obviously rooted in primate social > behavior. Well, as said, Pirsig may have gone lightly across some points, but the basics is sound. Let me think. Language has been a bone of some contention at this forum. Before I have maintained that it evolved "inside" the 3rd. level and became the social pattern that facilitated intellect, but perhaps it was the BIOLOGICAL pattern that brought existence to the social level? I believe language emerged about 50 thousand years ago and only then we may speak of a social level in the Quality sense, namely the notion of a reality beyond - transcending - biology. The old (social) myths did not have an afterlife in the spiritual sense, it was simply "business as usual". Again my pet (social) example the Semitic type religions - Islam in particular - that motivates its terror by the promise of a most concrete paradise with eating and copulating. > E.O. Wilson in developing his sociobiology in the late 70's pointed out > that human social behavior is deeply grounded in biology. Among the > evidence he presented for this was the striking similarities among all > human societies. He claims for example that ants show a much greater > variation in social structures than humans and few would deny that ant > social behavior is entirely biological. Again, this is society in biology's service. > Beyond all this is the absurdity of thinking that a set of "levels" so > blatantly focused on human beings can have "metaphysical" significance. As > I understand it, metaphysics is the search for a set of principles that > would apply to any form of "reality" not just ours. This I don't get. The levels covers everything. The fact that the social pertains to the human race and as intellect is on top of that it also must include humans is no argument, but perhaps you can elaborate. > Having said all this I should point out that the "levels" are often > useful. They are especially useful precisely where Pirsig got them from, > the college catalog. The various areas of academia are often lumped > taxonomically in this way. But on the whole I would say this particular > set of "intellectual glasses" has taken way too much attention away from > Pirsig's much more important insights regarding the interactions of DQ and > SQ. About "taxonomically lumped this way". Somewhere Pirsig says the same, but the MOQ parts company with SOM at the very start by being patterns of value. P. spends much time in showing that inorganic patterns aren't SOM's "matter", thus 2nd. level patterns don't correspond to "life" .... etc. Most of all that the 4th. level patterns don't correspond to "thoughts". In going from SOM to MOQ one must always apply the SOL that corresponds to the Lorentz Equation needed to go from Newton's physics to Einstein's. Pirsig's original "transformation" (the two lower leves=objective and the two upper=subjective) fails at some very crucial points. IMO Bo 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/
