Dear Maggie,
Thanks for your reference (28/1 7:26 -0800) to
http://members.iglou.com/hettingr/pirsig/DefiningSocial.html.
It seems I am presently re-inventing some wheels that were
already invented in the early days of the Lila Squad before I
discovered www.moq.org.
The most valuable part (with which I agree) were:
'Julian Jaynes, in The Origin of Consciousness, uses a metaphor
for the difficulty of the "conscious" trying to see the workings
of the unconscious, and describes a flashlight searching for the
dark. It will not succeed. Everywhere it seeks, it finds light.
(Jaynes, 1976, pg. 23) And this may be the reason that "social"
is so difficult to define. Social humankind holds the
flashlight. It does not see itself. It defines itself in
intellect. It nurtures that intellect in individual biological
beings. But the huge social level that is responsible for most
of human function is invisible to intellect and intangible to
biology. The social level is the divider between mind and
matter, subject and object.
...
"society" is not Pirsig's social level. "Society" is held
together by the glue of social patterns
...
"Q-social patterns of value" becomes a viable concept when it is
used for behavior patterns, whether instinctive or copied through
imitation, that are not thoughtful or otherwise self-aware.
...
This kind of social interaction ... would have allowed
pre-intellectual humans to pass on the habits of successful
groups to their progeny.'
I don't agree with:
'The great majority of intellectual patterns are only accessible
to humans, and this is what sets human q-social entities apart
from animal q-social entities. Since the emergence of the
intellectual level, the substance of the primitive human q-social
level no longer exists, as almost the entire makeup of human
q-social patterns have been mediated by the existence of the
intellectual patterns. The processes of the original q-social
level still exist and function.
And the important thing is to look at the process of the pattern,
the interactions and effects, not their content.'
- Passing on 'culture' (both in a material sense -ways of making
a living- and in the sense of 'civilization' or 'that which gives
status') to next generations is something unique to humans. Maybe
someone else can correct me when I err, but I can't imagine even
a group of anthropoid apes that develops a 'culture' (a way to
survive in a particular environment that is not fixed in their
genes) and consistently passes on these 'wheels' to next
generations. Anthropoid apes are very inquisitive and inventive
and invent the 'wheels' that are necessary to survive in their
natural environment generation after generation anew.
- Talking about (q-social) 'entities' reeks of re-introducing the
distinction between 'subjects' (able to access intellectual
patterns) and 'objects' (unable to do so) in the MoQ
independently of the distinction between the inorganic and
biological levels on the one hand and the social and intellectual
levels on the other hand, to which Pirsig himself relates the
(indispensable) SOM-concepts 'objective' and 'subjective'.
- I don't see how you can distinguish between 'substance' and
'processes' of social patterns of value.
Where I agree with you again is:
'- Q-social patterns are formed through imitation and retained
through habit. (McPartlin, 1998)
- Q-social interactions involve awareness of pre-determined rank
to determine which social pattern is to be followed. No thought
is involved. This is automatic.
Human q-social patterns are hard to see. One reason is because
many q-social patterns imitate intellectual events that have
occurred in the past. Nevertheless, once intellectual decisions
are repeated and become automatic, they are no longer
intellectual patterns. They are actually q-social. (They also
become invisible to the conscious self, which is the part of the
human entity that discusses metaphysics. )'
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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