ROG TO DANILLA (AND MARCO)
DANILA:
By "intellect" I meant here the abstract noun referring to people's ability
to think purposefully or create purposefully. I was NOT referring to
INTELLECTUAL value patterns, which are a product of the use of intellect. I
agree that when people create INTELLECTUAL value patterns they am not
thinking about or aware of society or SOCIAl value patterns.
I personally dread the idea of a world run entirely to conform to
INTELLECTUAL value patterns.
First, because for this to happen SOCIAL patterns must be weakened so much
that people do not have coherent SOCIAL values to organize themselves to
oppose INTELLECTUAL pattern that doesn't work with a better INTELLECTUAL
pattern. We already see the INTELLECTUAL value pattern of "free markets are a
holy thing" being imposed in the West, and it hurts more people than it helps
IMO but people cannot fight it easily.
ROG:
Could you please better define what you consider to be an intellectual
pattern? You say “people's ability to think purposefully or create
purposefully.” Is “I want a cookie” an intellectual pattern? Is it
purposeful? Are all purposeful thoughts intellectual? What determines which
are or aren’t?
I have restricted intellectual patterns to those that are, in general,
simplifications of experience that are measurable, repeatable, falsifiable,
explanatory, relevant, and that are consistent internally and with experience
and other theories. Inherent in intellectual patterns is that they be
analyzed critically and openly. This requires an advanced social system of
freedom and open communication. Do note that my definition of intellect is
not arbitrary, I borrowed it from philosophers of science such as James,
Popper and Pirsig.
Capitalism is a term referencing a social (economic system). Certainly there
are theories of capitalism, and those would be intellectual, but they are
theories of SOCIAL patterns. In the same vein, General Relativity is an
intellectual theory of INORGANIC patterns. Just because someone makes a
theory of something in a level does not convert the patterns to which the
theory refers into an intellectual pattern. Gravity is an inorganic pattern
referenced by an intellectual theory. Evolution is a biological pattern
referenced by an intellectual theory, capitalism is a social pattern
referenced by an intellectual theory, and the MOQ is an intellectual pattern
self-referenced by itself. In the same sense, a theory on human rights is an
intellectual pattern describing social rules and codes of behavior.
DANILLA:
Second, because even though I agree with Marco that art is just as valuable
an INTELLECTUAL value pattern as logical thought (really one is holistic, the
other analytic), in practice the INTELLECTUAL value patterns used by
political leaders are usually philosophies (political, economic, etc.), not
art. They rally the people using artistic symbols (Triumph of the Will) but
they reorganize society using doctrine or dogma.
ROG:
I agree that holistic patterns can be intellectual. I still am not convinced
that you aren’t denigrating ART by placing it in the intellect. Perhaps you
can solve this with your description of intellect. I am keeping an open mind
on the issue, and am willing to adapt my definition….
BTW, dogma and doctrine are the ANTITHESIS of an intellectual pattern by my
definition. They are social authoritarian ideas, which are not subject to
critical analysis. Is the distinction clear from what I have written?
DANILLA:
Third--and I apologize in advance for hurting anyone's feelings--the kind of
people who want to intellectualize society, by using analytic INTELLECTUAL
value patterns to change the world, tend to see art, intuition and SOCIAL
values as unimportant, for weaklings and women. People who think
holistically, who value the ability to create art as well as the ability to
think logically, who value kind hearts as well as adherence to "the truth",
do not have the singleminded drive to impose their INTELLECTUAL values on
society by weakening SOCIAL values.
ROG:
Agreed, at least in principle.
DANILLA:
Fourth, SOCIAL values are not bad by definition, because they have been
shaped by past (good) INTELLECTUAL value patterns. I think that human
cultures are reservoirs of past experiments with INTELLECTUAL infiltration of
the SOCIAL level, and that by studying them we can learn about the process:
how far it can go, who stops it, who creates it, etc.
ROG:
They are GOOD by definition in the MOQ, though often only socially good. I
agree that society is a reservoir of past experiments, though I think most
were not intellectual. They are experiments (in the broadest sense) that
evolved by competing and cooperating with other societies. The social
patterns that survived are those with the highest social quality. I believe
that democracy and freedom and inclusiveness and checks and balances all
developed because they maximize quality for the most people and for society
as a whole. Richard Wright explains this in detail in “Non-zero”. (This is
a whole different thread though) Of course, intellectuals such as economists
and sociologists have labeled and defined these social patterns, and made
them into theories which can then be transplanted and tested.
DANILA:
I don't agree with Pirsig that [human rights are] "between the levels." I'd
like to
elaborate: If, for the moment, we agree to see the MOQ as DESCRIPTIVE
(rather than PRESCRIPTIVE) only, "human rights" is either a) an abstract
noun that refers to the degree to which a society (or a part thereof) is
being ruled by an Intellectual pattern that we call "basic human rights" or
b) the Intellectual pattern itself or c) the social condition where an
Intellectual idea exists that some people use to change Social value patterns.
ROG:
No, I would say that it is an intellectual theory describing a social pattern
(how to treat people, how they can avoid certain treatment from authority
etc) that also is a minimum requirement for intellectual patterns.
DANILLA:
If we try to use the MOQ PRESCRIPTIVELY to understand or support human
rights, then we run into the well-known problems of judging Social values
against Intellectual values.
I really think that a lot of our confusion on this list would be cleared up
if we specified whether we are discussing DESCRIPTIVE or PRESCRIPTIVE
applications of the MOQ. I've been wading through a week's worth of
postings and this confusion keeps coming up.
ROG:
Help me to understand the difference. Please be specific with what each is,
and where I use one or the other. I want to learn, and think your
differentiation may be of value.
DANILLA:
In addition, I think it's really important in discussion to differentiate
between the entity (society, intellect, etc.) and the value patterns it
(can) create. Marco is coming from this viewpoint very clearly, but some of
the other posters don't. Some graphic marker is needed, maybe all CAPITALS
for the value pattern and small letters for the entity?
ROG:
Is there an intellectual or social “entity” other than the value patterns
themselves? I have written several times that it is dangerous to
anthropomorphise the levels. What exactly is this entity in your opinion?
I have defined intellectual patterns as those derived through a particular
methodology. I would define social patterns as those involving the
co-existance and interaction and relationship of multiple individuals for
their individual and combined benefit (individuals is broader than humans
too).
I guess my definitions can be considered “entities”, but it is not one of
desires and wants as much as it is of propensities and values. Please give
me your definitions. (I asked for and gave mine a few weeks ago, is this what
you mean by descriptive/prescriptive?
DANILLA:
Also, when Pirsig says that "value patterns are all that exist" I think he
means that whenever there is a perceiver and a perceived, the perceiver
"values" the perceived. The reason for the question "If a tree falls in a
forest and no one hears it, is there a sound?" is that there is no
perceiver, and thus no value. The only way to answer the question is to
assume a perceiver (God, the tree itself, animals, etc.). Every second of
my life I perceive, and I am enmeshed in the patterns of the four-levels
that result from my valuing. Same for every other thing in the universe.
ROG:
The MOQ puts experience as primary and explains the perceiver and perceived
as abstractions from this experience.
DANILLA:
But human rights is two words, as I said above, that refers to several
different kinds of relationships, depending upon who is using it and for
what purpose. I think saying that "it's between the levels" is an
oversimplification that perhaps is using a PRESCRIPTIVE view of MOQ only.
ROG:
Have I clarified this? Help me if I need to do something different.
DANILLA:
Most of the discussion here recently is about MOQ as a DESCRIPTIVE system.
I would really like to have a discussion about the usefulness of MOQ for
giving PRESCRIPTIVE guidelines, by applying it to real-life situations.
Especially I am interested in what it has to say about the environmental
questions where an expanding human population 'needs' to damage or destroy
an ecosystem to survive. How can ordinary citizens create a consistent
INTELLECTUAL pattern using the MOQ that would be acceptable to everyone in
society and preserve the environment?
ROG:
I am trying to work on this. I don’t have time to engage a discussion on it
at this time, but will follow the thread and will also ask for your input
later on my ideas.
DANILLA:
One idea that might help: we should not think about biological entities
like wolves, grass, fir trees, etc. as BIOLOGICAL value patterns only. They
naturally exist in ecosystems, which can adapt to Dynamic Quality (example,
a forest fire) as a whole even though the individual biological entities
are destroyed. But ecosystems are not "Social", that is parallel to human
SOCIAL value patterns, because they're not a higher level that uses the
lower level for its own needs. Or do they?
ROG:
Great point, (though you may be anthropomorphizing here… “that uses the
lower level for its own needs”). I always felt that ecosystems were not
explained well, AT ALL, in the MOQ. They are higher level patterns based
upon the underlying patterns of biology that have unique emergent value
patterns that are not contained in the underlying level. Again I will follow
your discussion closely….
Thanks for the feedback, hopefully we can continue to benefit from the
exchange. The major parting place between Marco and you as opposed to me is
in our initial definitions. Please help me to understand what your
definitions are, and how you arived at them, and we can go from there. Let me
know if mine are clear enough.
Rog
"I think that science suggests to us...a picture of the universe that is
inventive or even creative; of a universe in which new things emerge, on new
levels.
[K. Popper]
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