Hi Magnus:
Delighted to see you back in fray after a long absence. However, I cannot
let some of your statements pass without challenging them. For example,
you wrote:
> No, it doesn't necessarily mean that cells are intelligent. If you read my
> answer to Marco yesterday, you'll see that the language and the society
> evolves simultaneously. This is such a case where the organs of the body
> have developed a language without showing intellect.
This implies that bodily organs form a society. Perhaps they do in the
broadest sense of the term, but not in Pirsig's sense because society as
used in the MOQ primarily refers to human society. I believe in the past
you have pointed out one or two exceptions where Pirsig uses the term in
its broad sense, but I dare say that the majority of MOQites will agree
with me that Pirsig's "social level" does NOT refer to two atoms, or a
dozen molecules, or a thousand ants or a gaggle of geese, but rather a
collection of human beings. The battle between society and intellect that
Pirsig spends so much time on doesn't make sense if society is considered
any situation where two or three entities of any kind, such as protons,
come together as you seem to insist on when using the word.
Similarly, the following description of the levels seems askew:
> Your 3+1 idea makes the lower 3 levels into an organization chart, that's
> not a metaphysics. The levels are not about scale! Each level is orthogonal
> to all other levels, i.e. extends in a 90 degree angle to all other.
If this means that the lower levels are not included in the upper, I
disagree. The "scale" of the intellectual level is three levels larger
than inorganic since it includes the inorganic, biological and social
levels. The only way I know to picture levels and the inclusion of levels
simultaneously (and to indicate increasing size) is by using concentric
circles, not 90 degree angles.
I admire your quest to unite quantum mechanics with the MOQ, but didn't
Pirsig already do a pretty good job of that with his SODV paper? After
all, both science and the MOQ come to the same conclusion . . . that
consciousness and the external world, subject and object, are ultimately
one and the same thing.
Science calls this fundamental "thing" the Unknown or Unmanifested Primal
Soup. Pirsig calls it Quality. Then he alone of all the philosophers since
Plato split the Unknown in a new way that made a hundred percent more
sense than the old S-O way. Geez, you gotta love a guy who with the
stroke of pen can change the world! On that we can agree.
Platt
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