Dear Denis,
You wrote 10/11 23:07 +0100:
"'Things', like cities, are often composed from more than just
one type of patterns."
How would you like my alternative (developed in the "Things and
patterns, Pirsig's authority" thread):
Experience (that is made conscious as experience) of "things"
often contains elements of more than just one type of patterns
and of more than just one pattern of any kind.
Experience is composed from quality events. Patterns can only be
experienced when you take a lot of experience together. Even the
pattern "a chair" in the toddler example in my 6/11 22:27 +0100
is composed from several consecutive head bumpings. The pattern
"chairs" needs more experience for its composition and the
pattern "artifacts" even more.
Patterns of value are not elements to compose anything from, they
are not to be treated as objects. If we do treat them as such, we
are discussing SOM and not MoQ.
I am now proving the general drift of your 7/11 14:57 +0100
message: Please "acknowledge the superiority of my views, and
then we'll be able to start the *real* work!". I liked it very
much. The best jokes are not at the expense of others, but put
your very Self into perspective...
With friendly greetings,
Wim
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Denis Poisson <denis.poisson@ideliance.com>
Aan: moq_discuss@moq.org <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Datum: zaterdag 10 november 2001 23:07
Onderwerp: Re: MD Moral development
Hi, Bo !
BTW, thanks for nominating me for that Nobel thing... ;)
> Maybe it was just this
> passage (from LILA) that went so badly with me:
>
> > > "When societies and cultures
> > > and cities are seen not as inventions of 'man' but as
higher
> > > organisms than biological man, the phenomena of war and
genocide and
> > > the other forms of human exploitation become more
intelligible."
> > > "This city, in its endless devouring of human bodies,
was creating
> > > something better than any biological organism could by
itself
> > > achieve."(Ch 16)
>
> "Higher organisms" seems to indicate that everything takes
place
> inside the biological level, much like the trite wailing
about national
> states as evil structures.
Yeah, I agree that these two excerpts are pretty bad,
especially the last
one. It opens the door to all kinds of fascist
interpretations by endorsing
human exploitation of other humans (morally inferior ones, of
course).
Pirsig surely did not meant it in this way, but since we
already have some
people believing that humans who act on biological impulses
should be
eliminated like germs... you do the math.
> Many thinks highly of this idea believing
> that it is the essence of the social level of the MoQ
(f.ex. the
> harangue that Oisin delivers) but this is NOT the way that
Social
> Value is to be regarded. In LILA Pirsig repeatedly
describes the
> improvement that this level means and what biological
> "vicissitudes" it releases existence from ... but all of a
sudden it's
> a nightmare: Incongruous with the rest IMO.
Exact, it just doesn't "jive" with the rest of the MOQ, there
is no harmony
in that interpretation. That why I think it's a low-quality
one (whether or
not Pirsig meant it).
> OK, a city may be a
> social pattern, but New York City least of all a typical
such, so
> dominated by intellect that the social part is almost
invisible.
Well, I cannot go into details here, but I have this idea
that the levels,
while useful divisions, create a false impression that
"things" can always
be filed into one of them, with no other connections to the
other levels
than the "machine-code" thread. I do not believe that's
right. "Things",
like cities, are often composed from more than just one type
of patterns.
Cities, for example, consist of a location in space-time, in
which we can
find inorganic infrastructures, which are used and maintained
by organisms
(humans). These latter are governed by complex behaviours,
which are
themselves regulated by customs and laws. These, in turn, can
be criticized
by individuals, who will then try to make some change in laws
and customs,
which will be enforced by biological acts (like the use of
force, if need
be). Finally, those might then need to change the inorganic
infrastructures
to adapt them to these new behaviours, etc.
While such a description of the dynamic exchanges that make a
city a city
might be flawed, incorrect, or partial (and probably is
guilty of all three
charges, so don't consider it an "official" MOQite
description of a city),
it hints at the complexity of the interaction of levels in a
"thing".
> All in all the NYC stay spawned many sombre thoughts with
Phaedrus -
> obviously he is no big city lover.
There is something deshumanizing in big cities, I've often
noticed that
(remember that I live in Paris suburbs). It's like the huge
number of people
there means that you are insignificant : what you think is
insignificant,
what you do is insignificant, what happens to you is
insignificant. When so
many people around you do not know you or care, the social
"glue" rubs off,
leaving you out of touch with your fellow humans. You're not
only alone in
your SOMish head, you're alone, period. While this also means
more freedom
from social mores and intellectual diktats, it is still a
scary experience.
>
> The fascist deduction from the Giant metaphor eludes me
> completely, and the "consciousness" of the various levels
(from P's
> remark about ......an intelligence of its own) seems to be
a great
> hang-up with John. I must point to my effort to oust this
arch-SOM
> notion from the MoQ, it's poison there and possibly the
reason you
> never seem to get it right ;-)
There goes my Nobel prize.... :-(
As said by Wilber, John and I, there is no notion of a
"consciousness" at
the social level. How can behaviours have a consciousness ?
The notion that
behaviours originate from organic nervous systems does not
imply that these
behaviours share the organisms "animal intelligence"
(different from
Q-Intellect, you'll remember). Because your computer can
compute bits
doesn't mean that this email you're reading can, does it ?
But it is also ridiculous to claim that your computer cannot
compute bits,
or that no animals have memories and capabilities for
deductive reasoning.
This intelligence, as lowly as it might seem, can fall under
the umbrella of
a wide-ranging term as "consciousness". Or should a law be
passed against
this word ? ;)
I'm actually writing a post that will address your concerns a
bit more
directly, and I'll post it as soon as I can. It's titled "Has
Pirsig
invented a new disguise for SOM ?"...
On that ominious tone, I'll now say goodbye...
Denis
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:01:37 BST