MD Relations between levels

[Wim Nusselder]

Dear Dan,   I renamed the subject, but this is a reply to your 20/6 11:24 -0500 posting in the "True Libertarians Please Stand Up"-thread.   In my contribution of 16/6 21:59 +0200 I suggested that the different levels evolve in analogous ways: "Biological/Social/Intellectual evolution can be seen as a process by which weak Dynamic forces at a subatomic/subcellular/individual level discover stratagems for overcoming huge static inorganic/biological/social forces at a superatomic/supercellular/collective level."   You wrote 17/6 10:45 -0500: "I believe Lila may contradict your analogy though I find it very intriguing." and quoted Pirsig 'against me'.   18/6 22:35 +0200 I raised 4 defences: 1. If you are intrigued by the analogy, that's enough to let it stand for a while, without bothering about contradictions with other valuable ideas. Let's see what fresh insights come out of your (and mine) intriguedness. 2. Why bother (too much) about contradictions with Pirsig's writings. They are not the supreme authority in interpreting and extending a MoQ. Our own Quality experience is. 3. Pirsig's writings themselves are full of contradictions. they can be read as pointing towards a more inclusive level of truth that can't be adequately expressed in words. It's the paradoxes (apparent contradictions) and metaphors that make us aware of this more inclusive truth. 4. The contradiction may be solved by distinguishing between moral codes under which a level operates (the law of the jungle on the biological level, competition for status or "the law" according to Lila p. 183 on the social level, competition for veracity on the intellectual level) and the way in which levels evolve. The ways in which levels evolve are analogous, but don't follow a law. Static patterns of value on different levels are just all being pushed/pulled by Dynamic Quality to migrate and sometimes they create patterns on the next-higher level in the process.   In your reply of 20/6 11:24 -0500 you quote Pirsig (via Ant McWatt). He indeed "closes up an opening to attack" on his MoQ when interpreted as merely an intellectual pattern of value, but leaves countless others. In the process it widens the chasm between the empirical and rational modes of knowing (see John's explanation 15:33 +1000 rephrasing Ken Wilber) on the one hand, which in my view are integrated by the MoQ, and the spiritual mode of knowing (Pirsig's "a Buddha’s level of understanding") on the other hand, because it precludes interpreting "DQ as goal of migrating patterns" as a metaphor. Pirsig disappoints me in this quote.   The rest of your reply of 20/6 11:24 -0500 confuses me. You seem to address the 3rd of my 4 defences with your quote from Michael Nagler's "Reading the Upanishads", but I don't quite see what point you are trying to make regarding the analogy I suggested. Are you trying to say that a MoQ CAN adequately express in words a more inclusive level of truth? Does your "evolutionary forces of value guiding each of the four levels being Dynamic and therefore unpredictable" contradict my analogy in your opinion? Please explain yourself.   With friendly greetings,   Wim Nusselder