Warmly welcome Danila Oder! Hi to all MOQ discussers. I have read Danila's message with great interest as it refers to Richard Edgar with whom I had a dispute over Intellectual vs Social Law. How are we to understand the Quality levels? This has been going on for a while now and will possibly keep going until a MOQ "synod" is held to determine their nature. Danila's understanding sounds sound to me, the point where I reared a little is this: > Society's clamors for Intellect's solutions or for Intellect to go > away are quieted for a while. I don't think the Society "clamors for Intellectual solutions" in the sense that social value recognize any Intellectual patterns at all. We better look at the whole Quality development to see this fact. The physical world (Inorganic level) does not recognize Life (Biology). If we retort ..."dead matter doesn't recognize anything at all....etc". we muddle the Quality idea and enter the subject-object world where consciousness (mind) comes into play at some magic moment. (Danila I don't say that you do, it's just me generalizing freely). The upper level is hidden to the one below, even at the Social- and Intellectual planes. I do - BTW - not think that society is a purely human phenomenon, once the "human" term (in the consciousness sense) enters, the "mind/matter" notion pollutes Pirsig's wonderful idea. > My Intellect is definitely not at war with Society; > it wants to improve Society. There is a struggle between the levels, but war sounds a bit sinister. I think Danila is right about Intellect wanting to improve Society, yet the intellect-improved-society is not truly social-value- society. Pirsig says that social value lifts evolution out of biology's dog-eats-dog existence, but by doing so it creates a new stricture that - in my opinion - is best seen in very old or even non-human collectives: herds, tribes, clans ....etc. These patterns are social value in its most pure form. In the same way that Life is most vital in its simplest form. However human culture advanced to a critical mass when some "ambiguous" social pattern eventually took off on a purpose of its own to become the static Intellectal level. Intellect's enemy is the said atavistic social foundation, not advanced society which is its experimental laboratory. Yet, Intellect's infringement on society can never be social improvement in a fundamental sense, just as Society's meddling with life can't add to biological value. The old level's value is fixed forever. IMO Even Intellect is rigid, but that's another story. ROGER says: > 2) Dan has COMPLETELY misrepresented the MOQ as saying the intellect > needs to destroy and do battle with the social "in any fashion". Read > the book. It is about freeing itself from the lower level, not > destroying the lower level. Obviously there is some conflict and even > some battles involved in freeing itself, but Pirsig warns against > destroying your foundation. (I guess I am strongly in Richards camp on > this one) BTW, I still never saw where levels cannot perceive > something two levels away. Are you sure this is in the book? > Please help ME to READ THE BOOK. ;^) Hi Roger. Good to see your zeal for the MOQ! I have strongly advocated the non-perception (of other levels) view and feel a little responsible. The perception term has a strong mindish connotation so why not use MOQ's valuation"? As said to Danila the lower level does not value the higher one in any other sense than an irritant - a danger to "self", while the upper level values the lower in a very selective or selfish way. "Two levels away"? Perhaps the "unholy alliance" that we know from the Intellect-Biology conspiracy example But all this talk of levels conjures up (in Danila's words) > Society and Intellectual levels are not 'things' with stable properties > independent of the observer. In practice, they exist only in the > value-relationship of two real entities. Right, but as said (to Richard Edgar), human beings range dynamically over the entire Q spectrum. However, when on one level we are oblivious to anything else, but value-focus may shift in split-second intervals. Where in LILA does it say so? Shame on me, I cannot point to a single passage, but everything points to this conclusion ....IMO! > 3) Dan, when is it that modern society "hangs .....etc Dan will undoubtly answer for himself, but let me offer this. The modern heretic is not persecuted by society in the social-value sense, it is the Intellect-influenced society which spots attempts to undermine Intellect. P's (of ZAMM) Quality insight was spotted by its "immune system" as dangerous to self - to reason. The spotting not by any "agents", but by himself as intellect-focussed ...where else could he be focussed at that time? And look how my insistence upon Intellect as a limited (static) value level is justified. Intellect is not a boundless mental realm that contains "ideas". Its basic "atavistic" value is Objectivity versus Subjectivity" ....SOM iow. Roger is absolutely right in saying > ............................................... He wasn't exactly locked up > for questiong Descartes. (I can just picture Nurse Ratchett not > letting him out until "You fully accept the Aristotelian world view." No-one cares a bit about such academic stuff, but P. knew TO HIMSELF that he had passed some "Actung. Sie Verlassen jetz Die Vernuftiges Sektor" signpost and was falling off the edge of the SOM world. Better end this before my wife has me certified :-) Thanks for reading. Bo MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
