Wim and all MOQists:
-----Original Message-----
From: Wim Nusselder
I agree that the distinction between mythic thinking and rational thinking
is an important one and is related to political positions (as you argued in
previous posts). I don't think it is wise to associate them with social
thinking and intellectual thinking (with Pirsig's quality levels) however.
They are just 2 out of at least 8 of Wilber's levels of consciousness.
.......................Why are you drawing the line between Pirsig's 3rd
and 4th levels between Wilber's 4th and 5th and not somewhere else? Where
would you draw the line between Pirsig's biological and social levels or
between his inorganic and biological levels in Wilber's coding system? And
which of Wilber's levels would go beyond Pirsig's intellectual level?
I think you run into problems this way. You implicitly undervalue the
distinctions between some of Wilber's levels of consciousness relative to
the distinctions you associate with distinctions between Pirsig's quality
levels. I prefer to see all of Wilber's levels of consciousness as a
subdivision of Pirsig's intellectual level of values.
DMB says:
Good questions. Wilber's map actually has 13 levels. I think that Wilber's
map matches Pirsig pretty well. The reason Wilber has more levels is just
because his map has more detail. For example, Wilber's first two level are
where atoms and then molecules form. Clearly these are BOTH what Pirsig
would call inorganic.
The line between the biological and social levels? It seems that human
culture begin at Wilber's level 9, the archaic level where horticulture and
the use of symbols begins. Levels 9, 10 and 11 are called archaic, magic and
mythic respectively they all seem to belong to what Pirsig calls the social
level.
Likewise I'd draw the line between social and intellectual at level 12,
where rationality begins, industry and nations are formed. Levels 12 and 13
in Wilber's map are called rational and centauric and are both at Pirsig's
intellecual level. Beyond that is the future and is not quite a level yet.
Presently there are a tiny number of people who can really follow Pirsig's
code of art or can become mystics, likewise in Wilber's view. The stages
beyond intellect are essentially spiritual.
In my various posts about the distinction between the social and
intellectual levels I focused on what Wilber calls the mythic and rational
just because that seems to be where the line would be drawn. That's where
the change occurs between social and intellectual levels in the MOQ, but I
didn't mean to suggest that the RP's social was identical to KW's mythic or
anything like that. And likewise, I think there's more to Pirsig's 4th level
than just rationality, its just that historically, modern rationality is
where intellect begins to effect society.
I nixed what John B. wrote to keep this managable, because he's not here and
because I have no major problems with it. Hope that's ok.
DMB
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