On 20 Aug 2002 at 23:17, Wim Nusselder wrote:
> Dear Bo,
> You wrote 18/8 18:19 +0200 (to Squonk):
> 'Q-intellect is as said a STATIC value level, thus some definition of
> it is needed and nobody except yours sincerely has provided any'.
> We HAVE repeatedly been discussing on this list various definitions of
> Q-intellect other than your SOLAQI one (in my words: 'the value of the
> distinction between subjective and objective defines the intellectual
> level in the MoQ').
An exact rephrasing of the SOLAQI!
> In March and April of this year we even ran into a
> direct discussion of our respective definitions in the 'Principles'
> and 'Mysticism and manners' threads.
Hi Wim
It sounded as if I alone have made an attempt at a definition of the
intellectual level, but that is not true - what I meant is that only the SOL
definition offers something concise. OK here I go again ....:-) I must thank
you for the impressive research you have done in the issue.
> This discussion ended several
> times inconclusively. You didn't react any more to my 18/3 0:01 +0200
> post in the 'Principles' thread and to my 17/4 22:48 +0200 in the
> 'Mysticism and manners' thread (which had drifted away from a
> 'definitions' discusion between only the two of us). We then picked up
> the discussion in June in the 'Language-derived' thread (me 22/6 17:26
> +0200, you 23/6 8:51 +0100). This time I failed to continue it because
> of holidays. You ended then with: 'My point is that these somish
> (mind, consciousness, awareness .... etc.) terms are T H E great
> obstacle to understanding the MOQ. If brought to bear on it with their
> SOM load intact they wreck havoc. Pirsig says - for instance- that
> the term mind "....should be avoided", but that is not possible. They
> must find some place under MOQ's auspices, and my great achievement
> (humble as ever) is that they are the Intellectual level. Understand
> me correctly: Along with their opposite - they are Intellect. And if
> we manage to see Intellect from a MOQ perspective which is beyond
> intellect, it's a fantastic achievement, but if/when we use
> intellect's "aware/unaware"......dee/daa..terms as if it applies to
> the TOTAL MOQ they destroy it. Won't anyone ever understand?'
> I'll repeat some of my attempts at definition (see CAPITALIZED parts
> of the quotes underneath) from BEFORE our discussion in the
> 'Principles' thread. I hope they show that my way of defining
> Q-intellect doesn't DEPEND on SOMish terms even if I gradually came to
> associate the intellectual level with consciousness and awareness. I
> would be much obliged if you would be willing to point out some of the
> things my definitions don't explain (and SOLAQI does) and how they
> 'get bogged down in SOM-sand'. That would enable me to refine them and
> try to make them meet your high standards.
I might start on various examples, but it will turn this into a Kim Il Sung
speech.
> By the way: Where did you find a Pirsig-quote that the term 'mind'
> 'should be avoided'? I couldn't localize it in 'Lila'. In his footnote
> 25 of (my latest version of) 'Lila's child' he identifies 'mind' with
> the intellectual level.
In a letter to Anthony McWatt (3wd has the text, my old machine sits cold in
the corner).
> 18/6/01 22:35 +0200 (addressed to Dan):
> 'I distinguished between MORAL CODEs under which a level operates (the
> law of the jungle on the biological level, competition for status or
> "the law" according to Lila p. 183 on the social level, COMPETITION
> FOR VERACITY ON THE INTELLECTUAL LEVEL) and the way in which levels
> evolve. The ways in which levels evolve are analogous, but don't
> follow a law. They're just all being pushed/pulled by Dynamic Quality
> to migrate.'
> 25/6/01 14:31 +0200 (addressed to Glen):
> 'THE INTELLECTUAL LEVEL CONSISTS OF SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATIONS of
> (inorganic, biological, social and less abstract intellectual) reality.'
Forgive me, but this is SOM in a MOQ guise. The objective world
represented in our minds as symbols.
> 4/7/01 10:46 +0200 (addressed to Glen):
> 'ESTABLISHING TRUTH, THE HIGHEST STATIC QUALITY AT THE
> INTELLECTUAL LEVEL'
Yes, yes, I go for that: Intellect is the value of distinguishing between
objective (truth) and subjective (non-truth), and please Wim, I don't mean
that prehistoric man did not distinguish between truth and lies, but the
establishing of an attitude that rejected explanations that could not be
tested. Naturally, "science" in our sense did not exist then, yet it springs
from this attitude.
> 11/11/01 16:44 +0200 (addressed to you):
> 'I'm expecting a 5th level sometime in the future, too, but a next
> level needs a new TYPE OF "STATIC LATCH" (as "matter" is for the
> inorganic level, "DNA-replication" for the biological level,
> "socializing the young" by making them copying the behavior of
> established group members and "LANGUAGE FACILITATED ORAL OR WRITTEN
> LORE" FOR THE INTELLECTUAL LEVEL). The MoQ doesn't provide one. I
> don't adhere to your SOLAQI-idea, I'm sorry.'
I have backed down on the Quality Idea as a separate 5th level, but is is an
intellectual pattern not fully at home with intellect. If that helps?
> 4/2/02 0:31 +0200 (addressed to David B.):
> 'Regarding the question HOW TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN LEVELS, I'd suggest
> to LOOK FOR DIFFERENT TYPES OF STATIC LATCHES AND 'MORE DYNAMIC' ONES
> THE 'HIGHER' THE LEVEL. For the social level and those that border on
> it I hold that the static latch latches are: - of the biological
> level: DNA (preserving/reproducing species via copying processes in
> which RNA, proteins and procreating individuals appear) - of the
> social level: habit (preserving/reproducing cultures via copying
> processes in which unconscious behavior and raising next generations
> appear) - OF THE INTELLECTUAL LEVEL: MOTIVES (PRESERVING/REPRODUCING
> IDEOLOGIES VIA COPYING PROCESSES IN WHICH STORIES, PARADIGMS AND
> EDUCATION APPEAR)'
Read and understood, but I don't endorse the intellectual part. Ancient
people told stories and and educated their young no doubt. Paradigms?
What is that in this context? Please read the part in ZMM about the
immense time span between cavemen and modern civilization.
> 5/2/02 0:10 +0200 (addressed to David B.):
> 'I'd say that a pattern is preserved/reproduced by a process ('things'
> doing 'things'). You can distinguish different TYPEs OF PROCESSes,
> different WAYs OF PRESERVING/REPRODUCING A PATTERN OF VALUES (e.g.
> copying DNA/proteins/organisms, copying behavior/habits/cultural
> characteristics and COPYING MOTIVES/IDEAS/KNOWLEDGE).'
> 9/2/02 20:56 +0200 (addressed to Rog):
> 'An intellectual pattern of values ... consists of the preservation or
> reproduction of similar stories. People only take the effort to
> preserve or reproduce stories, if these are under discussion, if their
> 'truth' -or more general their 'meaning'- is disputed by alternative
> stories. 'Truth' is the 'fit' of a story with an intellectually
> constructed 'reality', a supposed 'object' of knowing. This 'fit' is
> intellectual quality that can be experienced. If 'truth' is
> undisputed, the stories lose their character of 'stories about
> reality'. They are not experienced as 'reference to' 'reality' any
> more, but as 'reality' itself. 'Knowledge' becomes 'reality'; the
> 'map' becomes the 'terrain'. Such stories are not told anymore, except
> to new members of society. ... In [those] cases 'truth' is directly
> subservient to reproduction of a social pattern of values. Without
> competing social patterns of values, the intellectual level is hardly
> distinguishable from the social level. ... AN INTELLECTUAL PATTERN OF
> VALUES IS REPRODUCED BY PEOPLE COPYING MOTIVES FROM OTHER PEOPLE
> (THEIR REASONING THAT IS SUPPOSEDLY BEHIND CONSCIOUSLY MOTIVATED
> ACTIONS); ITS STATIC LATCH IS REPRODUCED MOTIVES OR 'IDEOLOGY' (IN A
> NON-DEROGATORY SENSE), 'ACCUMULATED WAYS TO JUSTIFY ACTIONS'. In a
> stable social pattern of values without serious competitors nearly all
> behavior is 'normal' and needs no conscious justification. Motivation
> and copying motives from others is unnecessary.
Paraphrasing LILA: "Poor Wim, with this lead balloon for a vehicle ....etc"
> Conclusion:
> AN INTELLECTUAL PATTERN OF VALUES which is not just an appendage of
> the social level needs competing social patterns of values to be
> preserved/reproduced. It not only CONTAINS WAYS TO EXPAND 'KNOWLEDGE'
> A GROWING SET OF STORIES ABOUT THE INTELLECTUAL VALUE OF THOSE LOWER
> LEVEL PATTERNS OF VALUES, BUT ALSO WAYS TO JUSTIFY THOSE STORIES Vis--
> vis alternative stories. ... Recognition of an INTELLECTUAL PATTERN OF
> VALUES (and thus of alternative social patterns of values, alternative
> patterns of behavior) IMPLIES BOTH THE NEED AND THE POSSIBILITY TO
> CONSCIOUSLY JUSTIFY ONE'S BEHAVIOR. It is necessary because one has to
> choose between those competing patterns of possible behavior. It is
> possible because the intellectual pattern of values contains not only
> stories about 'what exists' at lower levels of value, but also ways to
> justify behavior with those stories. Consciously justified/motivated
> behavior (which I further call 'acting' or 'action') IMPLIES
> (RELATIVELY FREE) CHOICE AND THE POSSIBILITY TO BREAK, CHANGE OR AT
> LEAST MAKE EXCEPTIONS TO SOCIAL PATTERNS OF VALUES. The main 'trump
> card' (as Angus calls it) at the social level is not DQ itself, but
> intellectual quality. AN INTELLECTUAL PATTERN OF VALUES should not be
> interpreted as a set of ideas that directly interferes in the social
> level, changing lower quality social patterns of values into higher
> quality patterns of values. It IS rather A PATTERN OF WAYS IN WHICH
> SOCIAL PATTERNS OF VALUES MIGRATE 'OF THEMSELVES' TOWARD DYNAMIC
> QUALITY AS MEDIATED BY INTELLECTUAL QUALITY: BY COMPETITION, BY
> DISPUTING THE 'TRUTH' OF THE JUSTIFICATION OF THOSE OPTING IN AND OUT
> OF SOCIETIES, 'is this society really, objectively, better than that
> one?'... ... IT IS THE WAY IN WHICH ... IDEAS ARE PASSED ON AND
> REPRODUCED (AS JUSTIFICATION OF ALTERNATIVE COURSES OF ACTION) THAT
> CONSTITUTES THE INTELLECTUAL PATTERN OF VALUES. ...
> In chapter 30 of
> 'Lila' Pirsig traces back the transition from social to intellectual
> patterns of value, from 'mythos' to 'logos' ... the 'birth of the
> intellectual level' that is occasionally debated on this list. ... he
> ... deduces that rituals, from which the first intellectual truths
> could have been deduced, probably were the connecting link between the
> social and intellectual levels of evolution. (p. 442 of my Bantam
> paperback, end of chapter 30:) 'He could only guess how far back this
> ritual-cosmos relationship went, maybe fifty or hundred thousand
> years. ... stone age people were probably bound by ritual all day long
> ... so much so that the division between "ritual" and "knowledge"
> becomes indistinct. In cultures without books ritual seems to be a
> public library for teaching the young and preserving common values and
> information'. So early humans probably experienced harmony with
> 'truth' as a higher level value which had not yet formed static
> patterns through rituals from which they derived a dim understanding
> of 'cosmic order' beyond the social order which they did understand.
> Art and religion were (on hindsight) the kinds of activity in which
> early humans explored the 'cosmic order' beyond 'social order'. In due
> course the exploration of 'cosmic order' would give rise to the
> exploration of 'laws of nature' and science, which left art and
> religion to explore DQ beyond even intellectual quality (truth).
> That's were we are now: the intellectual level has fully formed as an
> independent level of values and in order to experience even higher
> level value we have to return to art and religion.'
I found the part in LILA and no objections at all. There were hundred of
thousand of years when intellect was "in the service of society", when it was
the most advanced social pattern there were, but WHEN it "took off on a
purpose of its own" it emerged as counter to the social cause and started its
eternal task of controlling it ....social value in intellect's world-view became
dangerous, emotional, biased subjectivity in stark contrast to its own
impartial, clear objectivity.
> 10/2/02 12:28 +0200 (addressed to Jonathan):
> '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 (AN
> 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.
All right, no contradiction spotted.
> In my opinion the social level does NOT require language yet.
> The first humans that createdsocial 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.'
> 12/2/02 9:11 +0200 (addressed to Marco):
> 'I SUGGESTED 'ETHICS' (comparable with your 'human rights') AS THE
> MORALITY BY WHICH INTELLECTUAL PATTERNS OF VALUES TRY TO CONTROL
> SOCIAL PATTERNS OF VALUES.'
Ethics is morality (quality) so that's obvious. However, the ESSENCE of
intellect's method to control social value is demonstrating that itself is in
accordance with reality while "tradition" (intellect knows no "social value")
has no other function than just being empty rituals.
> 3/3/02 1:00 +0200 (addressed to Marco):
> 'At the lowest level of DQ that is secured by a static Q-level, that
> level has barely come into existence. Its patterns of values can only
> hope to be stable, to be a firm latch, by being of service to the
> lower level.
> For the first 2 levels I'm fine with both Marco's 'Something is better
> than Nothing' & 'Alive is better than Dead' (17/2 15:21 +0100) and
> with Rog's 'It is better to last' & 'It is better to adapt' (23/2
> 13:32 -0500). For the 3rd level, I agree with David B. (17/2 16:31
> -0700) that Marco & Rog's 'Together is better than Alone' & 'It is
> better together' lead into trouble by suggesting a contest between
> individual and group. As an alternative I'd suggest 'Proven practices
> are better than unproven ones' or 'It is better to do that which
> worked before'. This encompasses both individual habits and group
> practices that are copied by those who feel they 'belong'. This
> principle creates both stable patterns of individual behavior and
> stable, recognizable groups.
>
> The main issue however is WHAT MORAL PRINCIPLE FOUNDS THE 4TH LEVEL. I
> agree again with David B. that Marco's suggestion of 'Individuality'
> (as better than mass/conformity) is (still) too suggestive of (but I
> agree, Marco, not necessarily implying) a contest between individual
> and group. Contests between individual and group are internal to the
> 3rd level: they are usually conflicts about whether certain practices
> have proven to work or not if (only) an individual has tested them.
> THE 4TH LEVEL of course 'breaks free' to some extent from the 3rd
> level. It CONSISTS OF PATTERNS FORMED BY EXCEPTIONS TO 3RD LEVEL
> PATTERNS OF VALUES. IT CONSISTS OF VALUES THAT GO BEYOND PROVEN
> PRACTICES, BOTH INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP ONES. IT IS NOT INDIVIDUALITY
> THAT CHARACTERIZED THOSE BEYOND-SOCIAL-VALUES. I therefore prefer
> Rog's 'It is better to understand'. I think Rog rightly claims (2/2
> 11:59 -0500) that his formulation applies (real broadly...) to the
> 'humanist' principles of 'individual rights, self-awareness, ethics,
> freedom, creativity' etc. as well as to the 'rational' principles of
> '"law" making, understanding, thinking, reason, science, rationality,
> objectivity, truth.....' etc.. THE ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 3RD
> AND 4TH LEVEL SEEMS TO ME TO BE REFLECTION UPON FORMERLY HABITUAL AND
> UNCONSCIOUS PRACTICES. A slight improvement upon Rog's formulation
> might therefore be: 'IT IS BETTER TO REFLECT BEFORE YOU ACT'... New,
> consciously/intellectually based (both 'rational' and 'humane'),
> practices can be said to be based in 'understanding' what you are
> doing and why you are doing it. Some of them imply understanding the
> inorganic or biological patterns of values that they are using or
> adapting to social benefit. Others imply understanding the social
> patterns of values (unwritten law) that they are trying to 'service'
> and improve (in this first phase, in which the 4rd level has barely
> come into existence). Written, prescriptive law is developed by
> reflection upon unwritten law, group habits and mores, weeding out
> what is 'irrational' and reinforcing and improving upon what is
> 'rational'. Remember the FOLDOP definitions you provided 26/11 18:49
> +0100 (emphasis added)...: '"morality" refers to the first-order
> beliefs and PRACTICES about good and evil by means of which we guide
> our behavior. Contrast with ethics, which is the second-order,
> REFLECTIVE, critical and normative consideration of our moral beliefs
> and practices. Ethics: branch of philosophy concerned with the
> evaluation of human conduct.'
>
> IN ORDER TO TRIUMPH OVER THE 3RD LEVEL AND TO REACH ITS HIGHEST
> LEVEL OF DQ,
> THE 4TH LEVEL HAS TO BECOME REAL CRITICAL OF 3RD LEVEL PRACTICES: IT
> DOES SO BY FORMULATING PRINCIPLES, (WRITTEN) LAWS, RESPONSIBILITIES,
> DUTIES AND ... RIGHTS. THE BEST SUMMARY OF THAT HIGHEST LEVEL THE 4TH
> LEVEL CAN RAACH IS FOR ME JONATHAN'S 'RIGHT TO DIGNITY' (20/2 00:25
One objection Mynherr! If any virtue is social it's "duty". It's THE social
value. "Responsibility" too IMO.
> +0200). I'll return to that in my next posting in the 'Is Society
> Making Progress?'-thread.
> 'Laws of nature', 'the law of the jungle' and 'the Law' are in my
> interpretation the HIGHEST level the 1st, 2nd and 3rd level can
> reach... formulated from a 4th level point of view (and therefore with
> negative connotations).'
> 5/3/02 10:46 +0200:
> 'DIGNITY is -unlike status, unlike fame and fortune- an intellectual
> value. It IMPLIES HAVING THE POSSIBILITY TO UPHOLD ONE'S PERSONAL
> TRUTH, INTEGRITY AND IDENTITY.
The above is nonsense with all respect!
> Unlike social quality it is not
> relative in the sense of being dependent on the dignity of others.
> (Status, fame and fortune can only be measured as relative
> quantities.) It is relative in another sense however: one can only
> have dignity relative to the amount and complexity of one's truth,
> integrity, identity etc.. A simple-minded person (forgive me the
> M-word, Bo) can display the same dignity as a Gandhi with less
> personal intellectual values. Most animals have no personal
> intellectual values at all and can be used for human purposes without
> loss of dignity ... if only they are treated humanely, for otherwise
> the human involved loses part of its dignity. I think I read on this
> list (but can't trace back when and whom), that a chimpanzee will beg
> for its life when under threat of being killed by a human. If that is
> true, I think chimpanzees should not be killed for sport or other
> human purposes, as humans should not be killed by other humans for
> selfish purposes. Maybe dolphins, who recognize and act upon the need
> of drowning humans (a different species!) are in the same category.
> Their 'right to dignity' should at least contain a 'right to life'.
> Identifying 'rights' is only one of the ways of evaluating and
> prescribing human behavior. Other ways are identifying 'duties' and
> 'responsibilities'. They are logically related: to the extent that one
> is 'responsible' for something or someone else, one has a 'duty' to
> safeguard its of her/his 'rights'. EVALUATING AND PRESCRIBING HUMAN
> BEHAVIOR IS THE WAY IN WHICH INTELLECTUAL VALUES INTERVENE IN THE
> SOCIAL LEVEL (CREATE EXCEPTIONS TO SOCIAL PATTERNS OF VALUES) AND THE
> WAY IN WHICH THEY CAN ENHANCE THEIR BALANCE BETWEEN STABILITY AND
> VERSATILITY.'
Great piece Wim, I dimly remember all this, but my impression was that it
provides no "essence" of the the intellectual level. Your various examples of
how intellect ....intervenes in - and ...creates exceptions to social patterns of
value" .. enhance ...etc. are all correct, but it is so fragmented.
Please Wim, evaluate the correlation I find by superimposing LILA upon
ZMM in the part about the Sophists and all that (attached below). It
demonstrates the SOLAQI beyond all doubt ....in my opinion, I may be
wrong, but please show me where I err.
Bo
................
Pirsig starts his story about Phaedrus by telling how : "...he had spent
his entire life pursuing the ghost of rationality", and rationality is THE
objective approach, nobody will deny that? Later in the book he gives his
description of how this attitude came to dominate Greek culture, and as
"subjectivity" follows "objectivity" slavishly, it must be interpreted as "the
coming of
SOM". (I don't find if SOM is used in that book)
Enter the MOQ and the static levels. The Sophists are in retrospect
seen as representatives of social value (Protagoras' "man the measure of
all things" sentence its essence) and as the quest for objective truth
(SOM) came to replace this it is just as clear that SOM IS THE VALUE
LEVEL FOLLOWING THE SOCIAL LEVEL!!!!!! In other words Q-Intellect is
the value of the S/O divide! It's just written all over Pirsig's work.
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