Bo and all:
I deleted lots of this one for the sake of brevity. Hope I didn't avoid
anything important, but if so please fire off another post...
Bo responded to my mythological take with...
I can't really find out - at a glance - if my vision of the 3rd level is in
accordance with your own or not, so I go to the statement that
collectivity and individuality both exist at the 3rd and 4th levels. But
of course, yet does this catch what is at stake? There are
individuals even lower down (maybe you say "all levels"
somewhere?) Organisms at the biological level and "entities" at the
inorganic, also an organism is a collective of cells and matter is
made up of atoms and molecules.
DMB fresh reply...
Does it catch what's at stake? I think so. Or rather I think the false
dilemma (of pitting individuality against collectivity) causes a great deal
of confusion. And yes, I think it applies to all levels, but it seems to
cause the most confusion in sorting out 3rd and 4th level values. As I'd
said...
> In fact, as Ken Wilber points out, everything in the universe is both
> an individual entity AND part of a larger collective system. Its a
> basic feature of reality. I would challenge anyone to think of
> something that defies this notion.
Bo...
About Wilber. Where does he take any first step remotely similar
to Pirsig's? I hear nothing about him taking leave of the
subject/object metaphysics. To the contrary his ideas sounds
much like the arch-som notion of matter becoming (imbued with)
mind.
fresh DMB...
Wilber doesn't discuss his ideas in subject/object terms, but he rejects SOM
in his own way. He gives equal validlity to interior and exterior aspects.
In other words, he doesn't dismiss emotions, thoughts or spiritual realities
as merely subjective. Like Pirsig, he considers these things to be as real
as rocks.
Older DMB...
> There is a good reason why the 3rd level seems so enigmatic. The
> existence of SOM's old mind/body problem helps to point out how
> invisible the 3rd level can be. Subjects are minds. Objects are bodies
> and never the twian shall meet. Or so it seemed until very recently.
> Thanks to guys like Jung and Pirsig we can begin to see that there is
> more than just minds and bodies. There's a third thing in between. I
> mean, it seems pretty clear to me that the unconcious mind, which is
> effectively the source and well spring of all myths, religions and all
> sorts of non-intellectual and unconcious motivations, is one of the
> most powerful and mysterious features of the social level. Its one of
> the things that have evolved in the last 100,000 years. Its not
> intellect and its not biology. The unconscious mind is somewhere in
> between and connects the two. Mind/body problem solved. Or rather,
> dis-solved.
Good! The body/mind of SOM being replaced by the Inorganic-
Biology-Society-Intellect of MoQ. The problem for me is
"conscious" as opposed to "unconscious". Naturally our bodies
keep functioning during sleep, but I don't think it's that kind of
unconsciousness you mean. Platt speaks about awareness at the
social level and self-awareness at Intellect, but I have problems
with this too. These terms carry an absolute with them: You can't
be aware in stages, it's either or. To me these are somish terms
and in the MoQ merely indicate perception of the value of the
various levels. I.e. intellect isn't any absolute God's eye view but as
said ..."awareness" of intellectual value.
The bodiy's ability to function during sleep, or to digest food and
circulate blood even while awake is the autonomic, and is unrelated to the
Jungian unconscious. I have no clue what awareness is in the Plattian sense,
but I'm convinced that consciousness evolves along with everything else. I
think its inseperable from the evolutionary process. That's how I read
Pirsig and Wilber and it seems there's overwhelming evidence from every
quarter.
old DMB...
> And we all still live with it everyday, weather we know it or not. We
> inherit it in the same way that we inherit our biological structures.
> I know Jungian and post-Jungian psychology has it detractors, but
> don't be fooled. The discovery of the unconscious, the collective
> unconscious and of archetypes is just as profound as Darwin's theory
> of evolution or Copernicus' discovery of heliocentric solar system.
> Its the kind of thing that causes us to re-think things in radical
> ways. The meaning of Jung's ideas is still unfolding right now in our
> lifetime. Mythologists like Joseph Campbell and Robert Graves did
> quite a bit in more recent years to expand on the things Jung was
> saying. Quite simply, myths express social values in non-intellectual
> symbolic language.
Bo...
I am not opposed to this if your - and Jung's and Gampbell's - point
is that myths are with us today, not as ostentatious as the old
mythologies' various godheahs, but as vague anxieties, urges
recurrent dream themes ...etc.
DMB's fresh reply...
Right. Myths and heroic archetypes are no longer the objects of worship,
they aren't gods anymore, but they're true enough and powerful enough to
deserve study. In fact, for reasons I won't bother you with presently, but
I'v become convinced that ignoring this aspect of the self can actually
destroy a person. They are psychic realities that SOM is terribly wrong to
dismiss.
Hope I've made some sense,
DMB
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