Hi Steve, On re-reading, I'm not entirely sure what you are asking me, but I believe this to support my post. Only wish I had a way to HIGHLIGHT certain sentences in this, but read it and tell me if I haven't been clear. There are other quotes I could use.
Lila Chapter 12 pg 101 (Electronic) Trying to explain social moral patterns in terms of inorganic chemistry patterns is like trying to explain the plot of a word-processor novel in terms of the computer's electronics. You can't do it. You can see how the circuits make the novel possible, but they do not provide a plot for the novel. The novel is its own set of patterns. Similarly the biological patterns of life and the molecular patterns of organic chemistry have a "machine language" interface called DNA but that does not mean that the carbon or hydrogen or oxygen atoms possess or guide life. A primary occupation of every level of evolution seems to be offering freedom to lower levels of evolution. But as the higher level gets more sophisticated it goes off on purposes of its own. Once this independent nature of the levels of static patterns of value is understood a lot of puzzles get solved. The first one is the usual puzzle of value itself. In a subject-object metaphysics value has always been the most vague and ambiguous of terms. What is it? When you say the world is composed of nothing but value, what are you talking about? Phædrus thought this was why no one before had ever seemed to have come up with the idea that the world is primarily value. The word is too vague. The "value" that holds a glass of water together and the "value" that holds a nation together are obviously not the same thing. Therefore to say that the world is nothing but value is just confusing, not clarifying. Now this vagueness is removed by sorting out values according to levels of evolution. The value that holds a glass of water together is an inorganic pattern of value. The value that holds a nation together is a social pattern of value. They are completely different from each other because they are at different evolutionary levels. And they are completely different from the biological pattern that can cause the most sceptical of intellectuals to leap from a hot stove. These patterns have nothing in common except the historic evolutionary process that created all of them. But that process is a process of value evolution. Therefore the name "static pattern of values" applies to all. ... A conventional subject-object metaphysics uses the same four static patterns as the Metaphysics of Quality, dividing them into two groups of two: inorganic-biological patterns called "matter," and social-intellectual patterns called "mind." But this division is the source of the problem. When a subject-object metaphysics regards matter and mind as eternally separate and eternally unalike, it creates a platypus bigger than the solar system. It has to make this fatal division because it gives top position in its structure to subjects and objects. Everything has got to be object or subject, substance or non-substance, because that's the primary division of the universe. Inorganic-biological patterns are composed of "substance," and are therefore "objective." Social-intellectual patterns are not composed of "substance" and are therefore called "subjective." Then, having made this arbitrary division based on "substance," conventional metaphysics then asks, "What is the relationship between mind and matter, between subject and object?" One answer is to fudge both mind and matter and the whole question that goes with them into another platypus called "man." "Man" has a body (and therefore is not himself a body) and he also has a mind (and therefore is not himself a mind). But if one asks what is this "man" (which is not a body and not a mind) one doesn't come up with anything. There isn't any "man" independent of the patterns. Man is the patterns. This fictitious "man" has many synonyms; "mankind," "people," "the public," and even such pronouns as "I," "he," and "they." Our language is so organized around them and they are so convenient to use it is impossible to get rid of them. There is really no need to. Like "substance" they can be used as long as it is remembered that they're terms for collections of patterns and not some independent primary reality of their own. In a value-centered Metaphysics of Quality the four sets of static patterns are not isolated into separate compartments of mind and matter. Matter is just a name for certain inorganic value patterns. Biological patterns, social patterns, and intellectual patterns are supported by this pattern of matter but are independent of it. They have rules and laws of their own that are not derivable from the rules or laws of substance. This is not the customary way of thinking, but, when you stop to think about it you wonder how you ever got conned into thinking otherwise. What, after all, is the likelihood that an atom possesses within its own structure enough information to build the city of New York? Biological and social and intellectual patterns are not the possession of substance. The laws that create and destroy these patterns are not the laws of electrons and protons and other elementary particles. The forces that create and destroy these patterns are the forces of value. Mary - The most important thing you will ever make is a realization. > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:moq_discuss- > [email protected]] On Behalf Of Steven Peterson > Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2010 10:14 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [MD] A fly in the MOQ ointment > > Hi Mary, > > On Sun, Apr 4, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Mary <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hello again, > > > >> Question 1: What is the Intellectual Level, and specifically, what > >> makes it different from the Social Level? > > > > Pirsig was nothing if not subtle. Hehehe! True, he went on for two > books > > ranting and railing against everything from World War I, the Hippies, > > Victorians, and people with more money than brains who could afford > to buy > > elegantly engineered mechanical equipment without the slightest > appreciation > > for how it works. But on one point he was pretty muddy, leaving it > to the > > reader to have the pleasure of working out the difference between the > > levels. All of them are up for grabs and have been hotly debated. > > > > The key. As the teacher says to her class right before the test, "If > you > > don't remember anything else out of this class, remember this." The > thing > > that makes the whole construct of the MoQ WORK is the idea that sets > of > > patterns only achieve the status of a Level when they cease to > support the > > level they are in and go off to meet ends of their own. Brilliant! > > Steve: > Do you have any text to support this claim? As far as I know there is > nothing to the notion of attaining any special "status of a Level." > Pirsig uses "level" to refer to a type of pattern of value. I think > that as soon as there were any intellectual patterns there was an > intellectual level since the intellectual level refers to the > collection of all intellectual patterns. > > Best, > Steve > 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/md/archives.html 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/md/archives.html
