Roger replies to Rob on questions
Rob Wrote the following and asked for feedback:
1. Life is better than non-life.
2. Groups of life are better than one life.
3. Anything that helps us understand non-life, life, groups of life,
and
their interactions is *better* than the quality within these things.
Roger (me) tries to answer:
This could be several Topics-of-the-month. Please allow me to back up a bit.
My first clarification is that the levels are defined around moral codes or
forces, not around things. This is IMHO the only reasonable way to divide a
metaphysics of value. Once you get into ‘things’ above the inorganic level,
they are defined by collections of patterns from various levels. A man is
chemical, biological, social, and intellectual. Pirsig makes these points in
ch 13.
Now, the hierarchy is as below:
1) The laws of physics….. gravity, strong, weak, electromagnetism are our
terms for some of these forces
2) The law of the jungle…..procreation, survival, and consumption of dynamic
complex chemical systems are some terms for defining forces
3) The law…….. rules of conduct between individuals such as teamwork,
communication, synergy and limited biological restraint
4) The laws of logic ….. truth, pragmatism, and clarity that allow us to
connect and learn from experience
The reason for the moral hierarchy is that the Dynamic complexity and freedom
increase as you go up the levels. Again, remember that things are usually
collections of multiple patterns of multiple levels.
This is a long roundabout way to express that I do not believe your 3
statements capture the MOQ.
Rob also wrote:
You have equated the intellectual with understanding.
Others have equated it with ideas. Still others have equated it with the
actions
that arise from the ideas (someone called it planning). I guess one could
simplify this by saying these things all flow naturally together. Together
they
are all the intellectual level? Is this your interpretation??
Roger answers:
W. James in ‘What Pragmatism Means’ expressed that ideas are to "help us to
get into satisfactory relation with other parts of our experience, to
summarize them and get about among them by conceptual short-cuts instead of
following the interminable succession of particular phenomena."
He also clarifies that pragmatic truth isn’t just about knowledge for its own
sake, it is about changing reality… "Theories thus become instruments, not
answers….".
To answer your question, I view the intellectual level to be about the forces
of pragmatic truth and logic. Specific plans and actions are composed of
collections of patterns, that can be very heavily influenced by intellectual
quality. For example, a plan to privatize social security involves all 4
levels. A good, pragmatic plan would take into consideration the well being
of people, the financing and social costs, the understandability of the plan,
etc.
Rob:
Because the MOQ tells one to do what is experienced to be right, one can not
test
the MOQ against experience. All we have is experience, so the MOQ adds
nothing to it. Furthermore, meditation reveals the truth much
better than thinking about levels, because meditation causes us to be more
sensitive to reality (quality) than when the mind holds a pre-judgement.
Roger:
Tough one, let me try to answer this in a separate thread
Be Good All
Rog
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