Hey there!
Walter, thanks for your post.
On 6/7/99 at 11:54 PM -0500, Walter Balestra wrote:
> Not so much about the evolutionary placing of the Intellectual level
> above the social, but more about the Moral placing as such. Especially
> if we're talking about the human being, being both a biological pattern
> and a source of intellectual patterns (or must I say, the possibility
> to the rise of an IntPoV, see further).
My thought on this is that human beings exist in all four static levels
(not just biological and intellectual), so if you accept the evolutionary
aspect of the MoQ as being correct, the Moral needs to follow. Otherwise
you've found a problem with the whole evolutionary scheme of the MoQ. I
don't see the problem, though.
I realize that puts society above man in some realms, equal to man in
others, and below man in yet more. While this is confusing, I think it is
also the best way for the world to work. If man is always above society,
then society has no right to stop one man from killing another. If society
is always above man, then society has the right to kill any man at any time
for any reason. I don't like either of those alternatives.
> I have two thoughts:
>
> 1. The intellecual level is more than a collection of thoughts.
A collection of thoughts is one SPoV of the intellectual level...but I
don't think it has to be all there is.
> We could argue that 'a thought' an idea or a 'source of thoughts' isn't
> part of the intellectual level any more than the pattern 'human being'
> is part of the social level.
Pirsig writes on this (and we could disagree with him, this is just for
reference):
"Ideas are patterns of value. They are at a higher level of evolution than
social patterns of value."
Lila, ch 13 - p.185 in my paperback.
That whole section is a part of what Platt quoted so far and there are more
interesting items from that section (see below).
> What speaks against this is the Brujo in the Zuni society. This is only
> one person. His thinking was dynamic quality at work to change the
> social level he found himself in. But was his thinking part of the
> intellectual level?
This is a good question...one that I thought I had an answer for, but I
don't really. If he planned to develop better interrelationships with the
conquering culture in order for his culture to survive, there must have
been some intellectual component. If he just did "what he felt was right"
then he was probably acting purely on the basis of Dynamic Quality...and
that is not limited to any of the static levels.
[off of the subject: Can it be said, in terms of the MoQ, that "his
thinking was dynamic quality at work?" If thinking is a collection of
thoughts and ideas, isn't it locked into the static intellectual level? And
Dynamic Quality is pre-intellectual by circuitous definition, right? Any
comments appreciated...]
This gets me to my reason for posting. Thank you! You mentioned Dynamic
Quality and I had been neglecting it in my posts and thoughts, particularly
on the individual versus state issue. My apologies.
Rereading the section in chapter 13 of Lila, I came across this quote:
"And beyond that is an even more compelling reason: societies and thoughts
and principals themselves are no more than sets of static patterns. These
patterns can't by themselves perceive or adjust to Dynamic Quality. Only a
living being can do that. The strongest argument against capital punishment
is that it weakens society's Dynamic capability -- its capability for
change and evolution."
This would seem to apply to all living beings, not just humans...but that's
another topic. The point is that the better reason for not killing the
brujo was that he was a force of Dynamic Quality, not that he may have been
acting on the intellectual level or that he might have ideas in the future.
> 2. From 2D to multidimentional morality thinking
>
> If you read Pirsigs quotes carefully, you'll see that when talking
> about morality, he always puts a perspective in the sentence. It's
> pretty confusing when one uses more perspectives in one sentence.
> Generaly our thinking is based upon a 2D morality: A thing or an event
> is good or bad, or maybe something in between, but it remains on that
> line. With the dividing of morality into the levels we get a 3D
> morality: a thing or an event can be moral and immoral (I prefer less
> moral) at the same time.
Yes! I was thinking about this today after saying that man was good
compared to rocks because of his ability to act on other levels. I was
thinking, wrongly, that the more man acted on the intellectual level, the
better he is. This is a flaw from my education, though (logic, comp
science, etc).
As the quote from Pirsig above indicate, another measure of the "goodness"
of man comes from his ability to perceive and act on Dynamic Quality. IOW,
his ability to change and adapt in order to accommodate better values as
they come along.
Sure, within the realm of static quality, the intellectual is better than
the savage. However, is the intellectual accountant/logician/secretary
counting from 9 to 5 better than the savage who captures fire? How about
the savage that causes his tribe to move before a flood wipes out the old
village?
The answer has to be no and the MoQ accounts for that when you pay
attention to Dynamic Quality. If you only look at Static Quality, though,
you might get the wrong answer. Think of Lila (p.186 in my copy):
"Biologically she's fine, socially she's pretty far down the scale,
intellectually she's nowhere. But Dynamically . . . Ah! That's the one to
watch."
Here Pirsig, who I said in an earlier post valued people acting in the
intellectual realm better than people not, proves me wrong. Pirsig values
Lila highly even though she is "intellectually nowhere."
> The perspectives used come down to a) the perspective from the SPoV or
> level and b) the evolutionary perspective. (For the lather I also used
> the word 'universal').
This makes sense even in only one interaction, say biological/social. What
was moral 500 years ago is not now. It used to be immoral for ladies to
show their ankles in public, for example. This might not be related, but
it's still against the law to walk barefoot on public property in Austin,
Texas, where I grew up...an evidence of static patterns if there ever was
one.
> 3D gets multidimentional when we consider also the factor time:
> something can be immoral now, but moral over a hundred years. From an
> evolutionary/universal perspective, the killing of this criminal or
> even the overtrowing of whole states can be moral if these events would
> lead to a new pattern of Value, that lets DQ be realized to the optimal
> (!) extent.
Agreed. DQ, especially when latched, is a "higher" good than a single
individual. What you are saying here, to make sure I understand it, is that
something can be less moral now and more moral later...not just that things
that were moral before can be less moral now. It works both ways.
> My point is that talking about the evolutionary perspective of
> morality, we should always consider the factor time, which makes it
> IMPOSSIBLE to give top-down morality judgements!
Lila, Ch 13 again, p 188:
"Morality is not a simple set of rules. It's a very complex struggle of
conflicting patterns of values. This conflict is the residue of evolution.
As new patterns evolve they come into conflict with old ones. Each stage of
evolution creates in its wake a wash of problems."
I agree with you. We are stuck doing the best we can on that "wash of
problems" in the current time and from our current perspective. We can
only say if an act is moral as we understand it today. What is good today
might not be good tomorrow or might even be inconsequential within a single
level of interaction. We do not know if the MoQ will evolve to include more
levels, for example.
However, I think that Pirsig believes the interaction between the levels to
be defined when a new level is created. Life (biological) should always
seek to control gravity (inorganic). Government (social) should always seek
to control killers (biological). I think that by claiming that one level
cannot "skip" down to control another (see another thread talking about
this issue), Pirsig is trying to give some moral "boundaries" or limits to
change in the moral code.
I also don't think the impossibility of an absolute moral judgement is a
hindrance in every day life. We should do the best we can do now as finite
beings. We can't "suspend" moral judgements. Morality is in flux, but you
know what is better now when presented with choice, so make moral
judgements and move on. One could argue that without moral judgements,
there can be no static latching of Dynamic Quality and that evolution would
stop and static patterns stagnate.
Cheers,
Mark
________________________________________________________________________
Mark Brooks <mark@epiphanous.org> <http://www.epiphanous.org/>
How do you know who wrote this? <http://www.epiphanous.org/mark/pgp/>
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