The answer to the question of what evolves from intellect, the next form; inhabited by Quality is art itself.
Dan: I would say intellect informs art. Because biology reaches its limited form, it takes a radical step, ... repeating the process the protozoa 'discovered' in subsuming itself to membership in a metazoan society. Dan: I would say that when we talk about the MOQ, social patterns are not to be seen as a collection of biological patterns. To do so is to create confusion. Robert: Society is a collection of biological patterns called people. I'm afraid I didn't express myself well. I meant to point out the nexus of biological/social as the grouping of individuals. That's not a social pattern. That's society itself. ... Certain aspects of biological quality are antithetical to social quality. Order produces a stronger society. Hence disorder must be mitigated by law. Dan: Social patterns make use of biological patterns the same way biological patterns make use of inorganic patterns. Robert: Agreed. Persig used the stronger term: 'exploits'. . .. My generation was not seeking to subvert 'Intellect' but to illuminate it's excesses - that which threatened 'disorder' or 'Decay'. As intellect informs society so Art must inform intellect to midigate it's destructive formations. Dan: I think this is not quite correct. The moral codes actively oppose one another. Robert: But not in the biginning. First the benifits that accrue from group activity become apparent, then social needs begin to 'trump' individual ones; the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few... all that stuff. Intellectual patterns do not seek to inform social patterns, rather they oppose them. Robert: Again, not initially. When the group makes a law to govern individual behavior, that's society informing biology. Maybe 'shaping' is a better word. Remember the parties Phaedrus attended and how all the intellectuals were rebelling against 'The Man'? Robert: I don't have the book anymore and it was a very long time since I read it but I recall a somewhat ecclectic group there. Robert's motorcycle companions, his son, some from the university and one who was refered to simply as an artist. Similarly, the code of art would not inform intellect so much as it would seek to usurp it. I don't see that artists are interested in the mundane world. They seek to create something new, not to imitate... sort of like the difference between philosophy and philosophology. Robert: . It was more the university students speaking that way. The 'System', ( i.e. Reason / SOM ) had become evil- 'rotten to the core'. Second: You use the term 'code of art'. Art has no code. Artist's approach thier 'work', oddly enough the way real scientists do. They're driven by the same curiousity and open to new experiences. Science misses much because thier 'phonomona' must fit certian critiria, else, it's disqualified. Artist don't have that problem. The world is not 'mundane' to artists- not real ones, and they don't 'seek to create something new' but are open to new experiences which, if succesful, finds resonance through them. Atomic bombs are unhealthy for living things and living things are valuable. Dan: I think that depends upon the context. Atomic bombs might conceivably be used to either destroy or steer away an asteroid threatening the earth. In that case, they would be valuable for living things. Robert: Agreed, but a science cleaved from 'moral responsibility' for what it unleashes upon the world may be a harbinger of global suicide. I believe the MOQ offers a way to sainity, but only if Intellect/SOM/Science is answerable to someone. If Quality preceeds experience, there can be no experience of Quality and if Quality is the arbiter of experience, there is no sensible experience without it. Dan: Again, I would say it depends on which context you are using the term 'quality' here. In the MOQ, Quality and experience are synonymous. Robert: What I mean is that one cannot define a thing that exists outside experience, and if Quility is the arbitor of experience, it is not found amongst the materials of experience. Walt Whitman in his poem 'Leaves of Grass' said; '... the unseen is proved by the seen.' I don't disagree with this. Thanks Dan! Robert [email protected] 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
