David B and Foci.
To continue our discussion.
Me:
> > ..................yet I find it strange that such a monster and it's
> > devouring nature seems like a revelation to so many, after all
> > suppressing society has been the western culture for a long time
> > now ..... while we seem to be blind to the Q-intellect Giant.
> [David Buchanan] Well, long and short are relative terms. I think
> that, historically speaking, 1917 was just yesterday. Even if we
> pushed it back to 1789 or 1776, that's just the day before yesterday.
> The social level was in charge for tens or perhaps even hundreds of
> thousands of years. The intellectual level took charge 83 years ago!
> Its a baby, a tiny infant. Have hope for its future. Nurture it. (Can
> you tell I just became a dad? Ha!) Q-intellect Giant? Hmmm. I wouldn't
> choose that image to depict the fourth level. I'm at a loss to produce
> a better one, but the intellecual level seems more like a giant tamer
> or the king of smallness or something else, something at odds with the
> Giant.
The "age" of the intellectual level of the MOQ is a discussion in
itself. I admit that it seems ridiculous speaking of liberation from a
static pattern that emerged - in the longest estimate - a few
thousand years ago. You are familiar with the trick of compressing
the age of the universe into one year? (I use Carl Sagan's table in
his "The Dragons of Eden"). It would mean that the Q-inorganic
reality was all there was (it's the earth to us, but who knows?) for
most of the year, only in mid November did the first sign of life
emerge .... the human form on December 31st. - at 10:30 PM. So
relatively speaking even life is ridiculously recent.
When are we to stipulate a true Q-social development? IMHO in
parallel with humans so that will be at 10:30. And Q-intellect?
Pirsig speaks of Homer, that is at 11:59:52. (Socrates at 11:59:55)
If you plot these data as a graph, a curve would be rising sharply at
the end of a very long line. So even if intellect is of yesterday (in
your scale) and its dominance in the West an hour ago, society is
just from last week and even life an "infant".
It looks like we are dealing with some "universal shortening factor".
Things go faster and faster, so to speak of a budding fifth level -
already - wouldn't be all that silly.
me:
> > ........... The bigger the giant the better, if there was a
> > plan for global government I would be the first to sign :-).
> [David Buchanan] Well, I'm with you there. Except a global plan for
> government strikes me as an intellectual level thing, an international
> organization designed to thwart the excesses of nationalism while
> protecting the rights of each. (Fascism is extreme nationalism, the
> social level reacting. Franco, Spain's Fascist leader, tried to
> restore the Spainish King in 1975. That speaks volumes about the
> nature of Fascism.
> I mean, the struggle with social patterns isn't so personal for me.
> Its about the battle against regression, devolution and destruction of
> the kind of progress that has produced freedom. I think its a pretty
> big deal if the bad guys win, so to speak.
Right. It would be an organization dominated by intellectual values,
just as most western countries are, but a social pattern
nevertheless. (we may have biological patterns dominated by social
value and inorganic patterns dominated by biological values.) If any
aliens arrived to zap us - and intellectual value receded as it does
in an emergency - this "earth society" would be our cause. These
things are very flexible.
Me:
> > ............................................... Locked inside the subject-object
> > metaphysics there's no way to tone down "reason". SOM IS REASON!
> [David Buchanan] I don't think reason and SOM are the same thing.
> Remember the late night talk after the rotisserie scene? I think the
> "expanded rationality" that Pirsig talks about there is answered by
> his own MOQ.
I know that P. says so in ZAMM, but I feel that LILA allows for a
SOL perspective. But that's my "pet theory".
> [David Buchanan] Right, but are we really ready to outgrow
> intellect or just SOM?
> I think there are many layers of development within each level. Look
> at the difference between algea and Homo Sapiens. Both biological, but
> oh what a difference. SOM is just one of the first layers in a whole
> new level that is just getting started.
Have we outgrown Biology or Society? No, but they have been put
in their proper place, and just by pointing to intellect requires a
vantage point outside of it. Regarding the enormous "size" of the
biological level this follows my "shortening" principle too. The
possible ways that inorganic matter can interact to form new
patterns (or how to describe this level?) are infinite. Biological
diversity is as you say enormous, but limited - I believe. Even more
limited is how many kinds of societies that can form.
Consequently, intellect must be quite narrow if we drop "thinking"
as its definition.
me:
> > "mysticism" is forever tucked away in the > harmless "eastern
> > retreat for those who cannot stand the light of > reason/cold
> > scepsism of science".
> [David Buchanan] Hmmm. This is the lynchpin of out disagreement. I
> think Pirsig was very interested in expanding rationality in such a
> way as to accomodate Mysticism. He equates DQ with it and DQ is the
> key to freedom from sq, even Intellectual sq. In fact, I the SOLAQI is
> patch to cover this leak. Without this leak, you simply don't need
> SOLAQI. - Right, the intellectual level was born long before it took
> charge. Socrates. 450 B.C. or so?
Don't misunderstand me. Dynamic Quality IS equal to mysticism in
the Eastern tradition. It's the notorious Western tendency to spin
its intellectual net around mysticism as "religious" mumbo-jumbo
that makes me want to solely use the MOQ. In it you can't find any
permanent DQ heaven and rest there, it will necessarily become a
new static expression.
me:
> > .............The MOQ and the SOM
> > cannot occupy the same "volume".
> [David Buchanan] OK. Try this image on for size. Rather than levels
> or layers or blocks, imagine the different kinds of static quality as
> a series of concentric spheres. The inorganic patterns are at the core
> and are surrounded by bio patterns, which are also surrounded by the
> third kind of static quality. (Notice how the volume increases.)
> So, its not enough just to trade on set of static intellectual
> patterns for another set in some lateral move. The idea is that the
> MOQ expands rationality and makes the intellectual level grow further
> outward, even if it is still within the fourth level. So that SOM and
> MOQ don't share the space. They both represent the creation of new
> static patterns. They both add to the "volume" of static quality as
> they evolve. It's just that SOM isn't new enough anymore. We want to
> preserve that progress without being hindered by it. So an expanded
> rationality doesn't need to destroy or contradict or otherwise nudge
> out the previous rationality, it increases the total volume.
These are difficult matters to visualize. It reminds me of physicists
trying to explain universal expansion with the famous fermenting
dough with raisins in it ...always stressing its limitations. My first
MOQ image - given by Pirsig - was that of concentric rings,
spheres convey much of the same idea. Yet, if my space-time
graph is valid the inorganic should occupy a huge "volume" and the
succeeding levels increasingly narrower ones.
You say that the MOQ expands rationality. As said to Marco it's a
question of perspective. One level may expand and expand and
remain the same ....apparently ..until a new level is established
and in retrospect (an imaginary spectator) sees that its roots
started as an "expansion" that became too much for the parent
level. Thus the SOLAQI is reconciled with orthodox MOQ. I can go
on claiming that the Quality represents a budding new level, you
may claim that it is an intellectual expansion ......the future will tell
;-).
Bo
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
