Dear Jonathan,
You wrote 8/2 13:12 +0200:
'JONATHAN [to Marco]
I am intrigued where you would put a concept like selfless
awareness in your scheme of things.
WIM's answer (29 Jan 2002)
...above the intellectual level, on its way to found a 5th level.
Wim, since I am already having trouble with the fourth level, I
find your suggestion of a fifth unappealing. I think that
inflating the MoQ with extra levels above and below Pirsig's 4
will cause clutter. However, I do understand that you are
alluding to the spiritual side of things.'
Let me try to help you with your trouble with the fourth level:
The 3rd level was in my opinion a new level when it started to
grow from the 2nd level, because it had found a new type of
static latch.
The type of static latch of the 2nd (biological) level is DNA
replication. Biological patterns of values have at their core the
replication of (nearly) identical DNA strings which lead to
comparable -instinctive or
circumstance-and-genetic-ability-dictated- behavior.
Social patterns of value have at their core replication of
cultural habits, 'ways in which one ought to do things' that are
emulated because of the status attached to them in a social
hierarchy.
The 4th level started to grow from the 3rd level when humans
started to motivate their behavior. Motives form patterns that
are separate from the patterns of the behavior they are supposed
to explain. Where the social level only required a dim
consciousness of individuality (a unique individual position in a
status hierarchy), the intellectual level requires consciousness
of a pattern of behavior of a particular body (of a 'person') AND
of a responsible 'I'.
Motivating behavior requires language, but language doesn't imply
intellectual patterns of values. In my opinion the social level
does NOT require language yet. The first humans that created
social patterns of values did not have or need substantially more
language skills than anthropoid apes. They only needed a little
bit more 'sense of individuality' to create the 3rd level.
Behavior is motivated because people want (or are socially
required) to be 'true' to themselves, to make their pattern of
behavior consistent. By motivating their behavior, and copying
ways of doing that from others, they create systems of ideas,
supposedly referring to 'truth'. These systems of ideas in turn
help them to make their pattern of behavior more consistent: by
modeling their motives and -to the extent that it is consciously
produced- their behavior after a system of ideas.
Don't be afraid: I don't think there is a 5th level yet. Selfless
awareness and other experiences promising a more direct
experience of DQ than intellectual quality are not yet statically
latched. Hence the recurrent complaint of mystics that their
experiences can't be communicated, can't be expressed in
language.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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