Dear Bo,
In your 2/4 17:43 +0200 posting you make it seem as if the evolution of
value levels is a more or less gradual development. Every new type of
patterns of values starts as a pattern of values of the previous type and
can only be recognized as a new type in retrospect.
How do you square this with:
'Static patterns of value are divided into four systems: inorganic patterns,
biological patterns, social patterns and intellectual patterns. ... although
the four systems are exhaustive they are not exclusive. They all operate at
the same time and in ways that are almost independent of each other. ...
they are not continuous. They are discrete. They have very little to do with
one another. Although each higher level is built on a lower one it is not an
extension of that lower level. Quite the contrary. The higher level can
often be seen to be in opposition to the lower level, dominating it,
controlling it where possible for its own purposes. ... An excellent analogy
to the independence of the levels ... is the relation of hardware to
software in a computer.' ('Lila' chapter 12)
Does software start as a rebel piece of hardware??? Does a novel start as a
rebel piece of software???
I prefer to see it this way:
Patterns of values allow for exceptions to the pattern. We are talking about
values, not causal determinations, and a pattern is still recognizable when
a relatively small (but sizeable) percentage of the experience deviates from
the pattern.
The exceptions can be either degenerative (starting the decay of the
pattern, its falling back to the lower level of value) or Dynamic (a jump to
the next higher level of value, which may or may not yet latch on to that
next level). According to me it is the exceptions to lower level patterns of
values that form patterns on the next level of value. It is not a whole
pattern of values that can be (first) part of one level and (then) jump to
the next level.
I wrote 17/3 23:01 +0100:
'I agree with your vision of the intellectual level growing from the social
level by utilizing an ambiguous social pattern of values. Language may be
that ambiguous social pattern of values. Ritual is another candidate.'
I should have wrote that the intellectual level grows from the social level
by utilizing an ambiguous phenomenon: experience that can be recognized both
as part of social patterns of values and as part of intellectual patterns of
values. The patterns themselves are either social or intellectual and never
both.
Cf. 'bits' in a computer: they can be recognized both as part of a hardware
pattern of voltage levels in electronic circuits and as part of a software
pattern of basic information. Or compare the famous picture that can either
be recognized as that of a young woman or as that of an old woman looking in
the other direction (and one never sees both simultaneously): the phenomenon
is ambiguous, the patterns one recognizes are not.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:09 BST