Hi Platt,
Platt:
If the levels can be identified by the reactions of their
experiencing
participants as Pirsig suggests in that answer, then the levels might
be better named as follows:
Inanimate (Inorganic)
Instinctual (Biological)
Institutional (Social)
Individual (Intellectual)
Ineffable (Aesthetic)
These names have a several of advantages. 1)The basic static nature
of
the lower levels as being static (objective) is made clear.
Steve:
I don't see how inanimate and instinctual are more clearly objective
than inorganic and biological. Plus, are plants instinctual?
Platt:
2) The social level is clearly identified as human (as Pirsig
insists).
Steve:
Social and institutional may be the most synonymous pair here, anyway.
But social morality sounds right to me compared to institutional
morality.
Platt,
3) The importance of
the arts in putting us in touch with DQ is highlighted ("Beauty
leads the
way forward" -- Gelernter)
Steve:
You've added a fifth level of evolution that I don't think is needed.
Everything already fits into the four static levels plus DQ
formulation.
Platt:
Inanimate suggests the level so named is populated by static patterns
unable to perceive or adjust to DQ which is what my renaming of the
levels
was intended to convey...- Merriam Webster defines inanimate: "a. not
endowed with life or
spirit." That's the meaning I intended to convey. Patterns at all
levels
include motion.
Steve:
In my view, all levels are populated by static patterns since that is
what the levels refer to--they are types of patterns of value.
But even if you are right that inorganic patterns cannot respond to
dynamic quality, why is inanimate better than inorganic at making the
point you want to make?
Steve:
If inorganic objects experience as Pirsig
says, then that experience has a leading edge. Right?
Platt:
Lower levels patterns may experience DQ as the "leading edge." But, I
don't
think they can "perceive or adjust to it."
Steve:
I guess it just depends on what you mean by perceive or adjust.
Certainly lower levels won't perceive or adjust intellectually or
socially.
You've accepted that inorganic patterns can be thought to experience
and that experience has a leading edge which is known as dynamic
quality. It seems to me that that should settle the issue.
Platt:
In the context of deciding the
morality of executing an individual accused of a capital crime, Pirsig
wrote:
"And beyond that is an even more compelling reason; societies and
thoughts
and principles themselves are no more than sets of static patterns.
These
patterns can't by themselves perceive or adjust to Dynamic Quality.
Only a
living being can do that. The strongest moral argument against capital
punishment is that it weakens a society's Dynamic capability-its
capability
for change and evolution." (Lila, 13)
Steve:
The point Pirsig makes with the above is simply that social and
intellectual patterns cannot exist without biological and inorganic
patterns. Intellectual patterns evolve out of social patterns which
evolve out of biological patterns. New thoughts only happen in the same
way that all other thoughts evolved--on the shoulders of lower level
patterns. Biologically killing a person is not merely the destruction
of a biological pattern but also the destruction of a source of ideas.
But anyway, something about this whole line of discussion seems wrong
to me. We start with experience is Quality and see experience in terms
of dynamic and static aspects of Quality including recognizing
ourselves as an experiencing subject as an idea, an intellectual
pattern that is part of the static aspect of Quality. Then from the
perspective of experiencing subjects we identify other objects like
rocks and classify them as inorganic patterns and ask if they
experience, too. We are no longer in the perspective of radical
empiricism when we ask ourselves what it must be like to be a rock. In
fact, we are about as far removed from that perspective as imaginable.
We are trying to figure out if a rock's experience is also DQ/sq. The
question itself seems to me to be outside the MOQ perspective and may
need to be unasked. Then there is the pragmatic maxim: what are the
consequences of believing that a rock's experience is DQ/sq versus only
sq?
Platt:
Those who believe lower level patterns can respond to DQ should offer
some
examples that are not simply explained by cause and effect. "But
Dynamic
Quality cannot be part of any cause and effect system since all cause
and
effect systems are static patterns." (LC, Note 56)
Steve:
But it isn't about our explanations about how the rock behaves, is it?
Aren't we trying to take the perspective of a rock here? What does it
mean to respond to dynamic quality anyway? Is ultimate reality
something we can get closer to or further away from?
Regards,
Steve
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