WHEREIN KEITH ARGUES FOR A CLEAR DISTINGUISHMENT OF THE FOUR LEVELS BASED ON AN EVOLUTIONARY EXAMINATION.
Paramount in this month's discussion of morality within the context of the Metaphysics of Quality (1) is the definition of the four levels. A number of writers have brought up questions on the levels this month, raising doubts about their order, significance, discreteness, etcetera. These questions are extremely apropos of the topic at hand since they are the framework on which we are to hang our moral questions and judge our answers. While I unfortunately didn't keep up with most of the discussion of the levels when that was our topic this last summer, I'd still like to revisit the issue from an angle I've been considering lately: that of evolution.
At heart, the Metaphysics of Quality is what I would characterize as an ethico-evolutionary system. I'll try to lay out what I mean by that through a series of questions and answers that recapitulate my understanding of Pirsig's work. The answers given are not meant to be complete, as the questions are just convenient ways to organize an elucidation of each level around the idea of evolution.
WHAT IS REALITY/THE UNIVERSE?
Pure value or Quality.
HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND REALITY?
Through the continuous interaction of static and Dynamic Quality. Patterns of value emerge in the field of space and time. We call these static entities "things". Over time, things change through the operation of the Dynamic force. New patterns emerge and they, too, are changed in time. We call this process evolution.
HOW DOES EVOLUTION OPERATE?
Dynamic-static, static-Dynamic, as just explained. Since it's merely the interplay of static and Dynamic, it's substrate-neutral: algorithmic (2). Therefore, we can apply this organizing principle to any phenomenon and trace its history backward. When we do this, we get the whole reconstructed history of the universe. We also observe something interesting. While we posit a continuous process of evolution, we notice certain disjunctions. We see whole new "worlds" emerging at certain points in history. We can conveniently classify these worlds into Inorganic, Biological, Social, and Intellectual patterns. Each of these worlds is in some way fundamentally different from the other (understood in different terms, described with different rules) but still has a matter-of-fact evolutionary relationship with the others.
WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE LEVELS?
Since the universe is composed of value, the evolutionary progress of the universe is also its moral progress. Each successive level, therefore, takes moral precedence over the preceding levels.
ARE THE FOUR LEVELS ARBITRARY?
Not given the context. Since we're taking evolution as a given in this metaphysics, we need to examine the question from that perspective. The four levels are a series of points chosen along a continuous evolutionary line. Certainly different points could've been chosen. In that sense, they are perhaps arbitrary. However, these points are very *useful* (2) because at these points we find significant emergent dimensions appearing. New phenomena appear at these points that do not follow the same rules as the phenomena that preceded them. In that sense, the levels are disjunct and non-arbitrary.
WHERE DOES ONE LEVEL END AND ANOTHER START?
At the moment in history when the emergent behavior appears. This is why the levels are non-arbitrary. There is, in principle, a single point in time and a single location in space when and where the emergent behavior that characterizes each level first appears. We may not know when that first moment is, but we can come close. The closer we get to that moment, the more defined the boundaries of the levels become and the clearer the definition of each appears.
HOW CAN WE FIND THE BOUNDARIES OF THE LEVELS?
It's obvious that in order to answer questions of morality within the Metaphysics of Quality, we must be able to clearly place the question within the framework of the four levels. I do not believe that Pirsig has given us a clear enough definition of each level for us to do that, leading to much confusion on our part in trying to make moral determinations with the Metaphysics of Quality. I believe the Squad can go a long way in clarifying these levels, though. I believe that the method for doing this is to be found in the sciences of cosmology, evolutionary biology, paleontology/archaeology, and intellectual history/memetics. By piecing together the discoveries of these disciplines into a single cohesive timeline, we may be able to discover more precisely the definition of a level and its relationship to its predecessor by seeing the essential difference that emerges at the point of its appearance on the evolutionary scale. We need to construct our own Genealogy of Morals (4) based on our best understanding
of the evolution of the universe.
WHAT WOULD A GENEALOGY OF MORALS LOOK LIKE?
Below I've started an outline for a Genealogy of Morals for the Metaphysics of Quality (5). It's by no means complete. I started it just to give an idea of what I think one might look like. I think we may be able to gain some insights on the nature of both inter- and intra-level relationships if we can define the levels clearly. One way to do that may be to lay the levels out on an evolutionary timeframe.
KEY
Times are given in scientific notation as years prior to 1998.
Times listed with a + mean the listed amount of time after the previous unsigned time listed.
Lines of the form "yyy ==> xxx" are read roughly:
"static patterns we call yyy dynamically interacted to produce static patterns of a higher order called xxx"
YEARS AGO EVENT LEVEL/UNIQUE CHARACTERISTICS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.5x10^10 Start!
Particles/anti-particles emerge & annihilate INORGANIC
Expanding universe cools, particle production ceases *matter & energy?
Asymmetry produces more particles than antiparticles
1/200,000,000 of matter produced survives
+1second particles ==> protons, neutrons, electrons
+3minutes protons, neutrons, electrons ==> H, He, Li
+3x10^5years clouds of H & He ==> stars
+5.10^8years stars cluster ==> galaxies emerge
supernovae produced heavy elements ==> coalesce into planets
4.6x10^9 Earth forms
4.2x10^9 earth cools, seas form
4.1x10^9 cauldron of molecules ==> organic compounds
4.0x10^9 organic compounds self-organize ==> anaerobic bacteria emerge! BIOLOGICAL
3.7x10^9 photosynthetic bacteria emerge *self-replicating?
3.4x10^9 multicellular life emerges
2.8x10^9 predators appear
2.3x10^9 aerobic respiration produces ATP cycle
2.0x10^9 nucleated (eukaryotic) cells appear)
1.5x10^9 sex evolves as a survival strategy
1.2x10^9 eukaryotic expansion
6.0x10^8 first tiny specialized cell animals appear
5.4x10^8 Cambrian "explosion" of animals now fossils
5.05x10^8 chordate phylum appears
4.55x10^8 plants and fungi appear on land
insects must appear somewhere here, anybody know when? SOCIAL
*specialization of
inter-organism interactions?
3.95x10^8 amphibians appear
2.65x10^8 dinosaurs appear
1.48x10^8 flight evolves
5.5x10^7 mammals flourish
1.3x10^7 orangutans depart from ape/human line
8x10^6 gorillas split from chimpanzee/human line
5x10^6 chimpanzee and human line splits
2.5x10^6 homo habilis uses stone tools INTELLECT
1.6x10^6 homo erectus emerges *self-aware representation?
neanderthal man and cro-magnon man co-exist
neanderthal man, homo erectus, and homo sapiens sapiens coexist
1.0x10^6 foraging societies exist
1.0x10^6 horticultural societies/Great Mother religions
2.4x10^3 Socrates drinks hemlock
8x10^1 World War I ended/Wilson president
2.4x10^1 Zen & the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance published
7x10^0 Lila published
1.3x10^0 Lila Squad founded
WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY PUTTING SOCIAL UP BY THE INSECTS AND INTELLECT BY HOMO HABILIS?
I think the division between the Inorganic (6) and Biological levels is pretty clear, though the definition needs expansion. The Social and Intellectual levels are the bugbears, however, as evidenced by the recent exchanges on the Squad. I think we need to figure out just when and where the social and intellectual levels emerge and give some sturdy definition to them.
I'm sure my first stab at that will be controversial. Quite frankly, I'm still puzzling over the Static/Dynamic distinction, so I'm in way over my head right now. That aside, I put the Social level as emerging with the social insects. I'm thinking here of ants and bees. I don't know when they evolved, or whether there are predecessor species which exhibit social behavior. To my mind, social behavior emerges when the nervous system of an organism becomes sophisticated enough for it to carry out differentiated interactions with other members of its species. So a social structure emerges as with worker ants, soldier ants, the queen, etcetera. The more sophisticated the nervous system, the more potentially sophisticated the social system.
I see intellect, too, as an outgrouth of increasingly complex nervous systems. My attempt at fixing the point of emergence of Intellect will no doubt draw criticism as well. When I reflect on it, I think the rudiments of intellect must go back to pre-human higher mammals if my stated criterion of representation is a defining characteristic. Surely some monkeys have this capability? Perhaps someone can convince me that representation is a pre-intellectual phenomenon. Regardless, the first uses of Intellect were no doubt for biological survival often through social organization. Only later does Intellect come into its own when societies are successful enough to provide time for contemplation.
WILL THIS POST EVER END?
And time for contemplation something I'm short on right now as it's way past my bedtime as I write this. I think I'll put this post and myself to bed and hope that the cavalry doesn't trample over it too badly in its undeveloped form. If you think the genealogical approach I've outlined might help us in sorting out the relationship of the levels, I'd be most interested in hearing your thoughts. Please go ahead and fill in the gaps in my timeline, indicating when you think each level emerged, what the defining characteristics of each level are, and what inter- and intra-level implications the point of emergence has.
Cheers,
Keith
-------------------------------
FOOTNOTES
(1) I dislike MOQ abbreviations intensely. As a computer geek, I see these every waking moment. I have a hard enough time keeping FDDI, USOC, ATM, EIDE, PCI, ad nauseum, in my head without trying to remember to what MOQ, SOM, IntPOV, SoPOV, SOTAQI, SOLAQI, etcetera, are supposed to refer.
(2) See *Darwin's Dangerous Idea* by Daniel Dennett.
(3) Pirsig is a pragmatist!
(4) Obviously in a slightly different sense that that proposed by Nietzsche.
(5) Timeline adapted from *A Walk Through Time: From Stardust to Us*, by Sidney Liebes, Elisabet Sahtouris, Brian Swimme and a teensy bit from *A Brief History of Everything* by Ken Wilber and of course some from *Lila*.
(6) I think a better term for the Inorganic level may be in order since it includes organic compounds. Maybe we just need a better name for organic compounds.
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