Hi Roger, Marco, Rob, Davor, Clay and others,
First Roger, to your response. I must say you seem to have understood me
very well, and there is little I would want to change. I certainly accept
your point that one can be oblivious to quality. This is partly what I am
saying in my point #2. It also explains why so many debates in this forum
seem to totally intractable.
When you say, "However, we can live in harmony with each other by ensuring
our values do not contradict each other", I am not convinced. I agree that a
degree of harmony is possible, and that the way we argue makes a huge
difference, but at the end of the day, I cannot see how our values can be
harmonised - surely if Wilber and Pirsig are right, and there are higher and
lower levels, this implies that the values do not agree. Pirsig makes this
point often, where he claims the values of a higher level are often opposed
to the values of a lower level. I think he errs too far in this direction.
Wilber suggests that the Basic Moral Intuition, "Protect and promote the
greatest depth for the greatest span", is felt at all the levels that
concern us as humans, but can only be unwrapped in terms that make sense at
each person's level. But the outcomes will indeed be different, and in
practice tolerance usually extends only from higher to lower levels. That is
why fundamentalism is such a problem for me. Not only is it oblivious to
higher level visions, but it condemns them out of hand.
On democracies, I agree with you that they have potential to rise above the
mean, and this must in large part be due to such static latches as freedom
of speech.
Meta-quality. Pirsig argues that we know quality when we see it. He also
argues that there is a hierarchy of static quality in which the intellectual
is superior to the social, which is superior to ... . If this was all, then
an intellectual apprehension of quality would be superior to a social
apprehension of quality. But Pirsig quickly saw that it is possible for
mental quality to go beserk, and in the process destroy the social
foundations of its freedom. He calims that this is what happened to the
sixties hippie generation, whom he says confused the biological and
intellectual levels because both were at odds with the social, and there may
be some truth in this (This is also like Wilber's pre/trans fallacy.) But he
also argues that the intellectual level must in some sense be in the service
of the social. And this opens up his metaphysics to some fatal objections.
What he seems to be saying is that there are intellectual insights that are
of high quality, only some of which support the social substructure, and
some of which subvert this substructure. The first are good and the latter
are bad. But all of them are by definition good, meaning of high quality.
Hence there is a meta-quality, a higher order judgement, which is over and
above the intellectual apprehension of quality in itself. And this is
precisely a moral judgement. It asks if an intellectual apprehension of
quality is 'good' for society, not just good in itself. So there are now two
competing standards of goodness, and no clear way of resolving the
differences that will inevitably come up. I also believe that the little
ethics in the last chapter of Lila, that talks about getting rid of Karma,
is another meta-quality that Pirsig just hints at.
I totally agree with you that Pirsig focussed too much on conflict and not
enough on harmony in Lila.
ROGER "the solution which must be found is how to allow countless patterns
of all different levels to coexist, thrive and constantly pursue the
Dynamic. I would also say that the history of the universe is a tale of how
far we have progressed
toward this solution." A great statement. Absolutely agree. Wilber says that
part of the problem is trying to force lower level understanding to do an
impossible leap to my level, without recognising that it must pass through
the intervening levels, which are all 'lower' to me, but 'higher' to it. Of
course all of us tend to be 'blind' to the levels above our own.
We seem to be pretty much in agreement at this point, Roger, but I would
welcome further feedback.
DAVOR "question; what in a perspective does and what in a perspective does
not change in these stages of Wilber you mention? Is there some sort of
classification? What is the difference between a tree on the rational and
centauric level of personal development?"
I take it you are asking how levels differ, and what discriminates those
differences. Wilber based his model on much investigation of how humans
develop, in particular on the work of Piaget in mental development and
Kohlberg in moral development. He also is referring to an old mystic
tradition called The Great Chain of Being, which has similar assumptions. He
calls this holarchic development, meaning that development occurs in stages,
each of which both transcends and includes the previous stage. I suggest the
best introduction to his thought is the book "A Brief History of
Everything". I don't have time to go further here.
DAVOR "A high quality pattern can be destructive, chaotic or decaying(?)!!!"
A good point. I think the original question assumes a lot, but it works well
as a discussion starter, so that's fine. Pirsig seems muddled in Lila where
at times he identifies dynamic quality or just quality with the good, and at
other times talks about positive and negative quality, eg the hot stove. I
am sorry that he reified the term morals to mean quality, which he says
can't be defined. I would be much happier if he had kept the normal usage
for morals, meaning what's good or bad for humans living in society. Quality
undefined leaves all this up in the air!
I don't have time to explore all your examples, some of which I agree with,
and some which I find unclear. However, it seems to me that food only
becomes nourishing as we de-structure it, one man's chaos is another's
dynamism, and if decay did not occur we would both run out of nutrients and
also have a severe problem with where to put the corpses. So I agree.
CLAY "That we should look back from where we came and call ourselves
superior quality instead of just more complex avoids the recognition of the
terrific job we've done fouling our own nest and everyone elses."
Yes, good point. However I think it is not possible for any metaphysics to
be other than human centred, since it is constructed by humans. However, to
assume that my latest theory is the apex of the universe is indeed arrogant.
CLAY "I feel a wrenching sadness at seeing the struggle for awareness go
around a mobias strip of intellectualism."
I'm not sure where you are coming from here, Clay, so I beg to both agree
and disagree.
I agree that the awareness that is important for working on oneself is often
not intellectual, and this is discovered through a praxis, a transformative
practice. I believe the ability to just attend to what is is fundamental.
Meditation is a more focussed form af attending, which is also a via
negativa, an undoing of the boundaries that we created as children. It is a
path that takes discipline and time, both of which have a bad press in our
society.
However as a type 5 (Enneagram) personality type, as are most other
participants in forums such as this, if the survey on this site a year or
two back is any guide, I want to put in a plug for the intellect. The
intellect is a great game. It only becomes a problem when it is seen as more
real than anything else. I view it as a form of exploration, and one of the
genuine pleasures in life. One problem with all knowledge games is they
become very complex. I don't see this as a bad thing in itself, but some
people want reality to be simple. Part of Pirsig's attraction is that he
purports to offer a rather simple way of understanding things. I enjoy
exploring his assumptions in detail and finding the holes, but I also
appreciate the strength of his fundamental recognition of quality, which in
my view is not much helped by 'Lila' and the metaphysics. 'Intellectualism'
is a dirty word to some people, but I think Pirsig was right when he said
"What the hell, let's do it" or words to that effect, because he had FUN
writing a metaphysics.
John B
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