> > [Mary]
> > The levels are not 'concepts'.
> >
> > [Arlo]
> > For example, we say the "inorganic level" consists of "inorganic
> > patterns of value", but is what we call the "inorganic level" also an
> > "inorganic pattern of value"?
> >
> > Nearly all of us would say no, right?
> >
> > So is the "inorganic level" an "intellectual pattern of value"? If
> > not, what IS it?
> >
> > If it is not an inorganic or biological or social or intellectual
> > pattern of value, what is it?
>
> [Mary replies]
> A pattern of values is exactly that - a pattern of values. That is the
> intellectual level way to describe something which really cannot be properly
> described at all by the Intellectual Level. Do you see? The whole problem
> here is that the MoQ cannot be completely understood in terms of the
> Intellectual Level. The Intellectual Level is inadequate to describe that
> of which it is but a part.
Do you see, however, that that is only a problem under one particular
understanding of _what_ the intellectual level is?
And further: I take it that you've just _agreed_ with Arlo. Is that right?
Arlo asked, "What is a level?" and you responded by saying that "a pattern of
values is exactly that," which I take it Arlo agrees with, and that "a pattern
of values" "is the intellectual level way to describe something." Is that
right?
If that is right, what remains, then, are questions about "adequacy": what is
this inadequacy? Arlo, I take it, doesn't see it. I'm guessing it has
something to do with "proper description," and that Arlo's problem is that to
say that "the intellectual level" has a "way to describe" is a misnomer because
I take it that the standard position is that the intellectual level _is_
description, or rather, where description occurs if it occurs at all. I take
it that one problem people might have is that they don't understand what a
non-intellectual-level description is.
What I'm guessing Arlo would agree with, and why the "recursion" bit in the
subject line has, I think, so far remained mysterious, is that once one
_doesn't_ understand intellectual-level behavior as, in ZMM's vocabulary, _the
dialectic_, as the usurper that tries to _encapsulate_ the Good, one has no
need to fear recursion, or in the philosophical problematic given to us by the
Ancients: fear of the infinite regress. (Indeed, some are working on how
recursion is a necessary piece of language and mind.) Specifically to the
Metaphysics of Quality, once one no longer fears recursion, one will no longer
think that the static/DQ distinction is "inadequate," which under your
understanding, I take it, it would have to be. For the intellectual pattern
designated by "Dynamic Quality" is a perfectly legitimate pattern, though it
refers to something generally undefined.
Kind of like a circle around a hole: why is the circle not a circle just
because there's nothing inside of it? Consider the body our static patterns,
and our mouth Dynamic Quality. When our mouth is open, is the space inside its
circumference part of our body? I would think not, yet that hole is still
necessary to breathe life into the body.
Matt
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