Dear Roger and Xcto,
While I agree that complex "things" or "concepts" are strictly
multi-dimensional, one "dimension" always affecting another; I believe
that further understanding of a concept is hindered by
explaining it in terms of "multi-dimensions" / "levels of evolution."
Concepts and ideas are best explained with reference to one particular
level having domination over others. This is the basis of MOQ.
> ROGER CONTINUES TO SUGGESTS THAT MEMBERS ARE
> PROVIDING ONE DIMENSIONAL INTERPRETATIONS
> TO MULTI DIMENSIONAL TOPICS
> My concern is when members reduce the MOQ's "collection of
patterns", into "a
> pattern," or "a level". I believe that complex things or concepts
or
> whatever tend to be multi-dimensional. As we get away from purely
natural
> inorganic things, we are more often than not dealing with an entity
that is
> comprised of a multitude of patterns at multiple levels.
RMP, LILA, Chpt 12, p.179:
"In this plain of understanding static, patterns of value are divided
into four systems: inorganic patterns, biological patterns, social
patterns and intellectual patterns."
RMP goes on to include Dynamic quality as the fifth level.
"... But although the four systems are exhaustive they are not
exclusive. They all operate at the same time and in ways that are
almost independent of each other. This classification of patterns is
not very original, but the Metaphysics of Quality allows an assertion
about them that is unusual. It says they are not continuous. They are
discreet. They have very little to do with one another. Although each
higher level is built on a lower one it is not an extension of that
lower level. Quite the contrary. The higher level can often be seen
to be in opposition to the lower level, dominating it, controlling it
where possible for its own purposes."
The idea that every part of reality must be expressed in terms of all
four levels shows, in my opinion, a return to a subject-object
metaphysics. It is impossible to clearly explain "patterns of value"
based in a higher level and give consideration to any other level
without clouding understanding of the argument. Yes, social,
biological, and inorganic systems are affected by intellectual patterns
- this is my argument. However it is not true to say that these lower
levels of evolution are dominating intellectual "patterns of value." I
stated in my last mail, with quotes from LILA, that the social
domination over intellectual values was crushed at the end of World War
1.
RMP, LILA, Chpt 22, p.315
".... We must use our intelligence to stop future war; social
institutions cannot be trusted to function morally by themselves; they
must be guided by intellect."
RMP continues in LILA, to compare this discreet nature of the
evolutionary levels by comparing Hardware and Software in a computer:
RMP, LILA, Chpt 12, p.180
"An excellent analogy to the independence of the levels, Phaedrus
thought, is the relation of hardware to software in a computer. ....
it isn't necessary for a programmer to learn to circuit design.
Neither is it necessary for a hardware technician to learn programming.
The two sets of patterns are independent. Except for a memory map and
a tiny isthmus of information called the 'Machine Language Instruction
Repertoire' - a list so small you could write it on a single page: the
electronic circuits and the programs existing in the same computer at
the same time have nothing whatsoever to do with each other."
RMP, LILA, Chpt 12, p.182
"Trying to explain the social moral patterns in terms of inorganic
chemistry patterns is like trying to explain the plot of a
word-processor novel in terms of the computer's electronics. You can't
do it. You can see how the circuits make the novel possible, but they
do not provide a plot for the novel. The novel is its own set of
patterns."
RMP, LILA, Chpt 12, p.183
"The value that holds a glass of water together is an inorganic pattern
of value. The value that holds a nation together is a social pattern
of value. They are completely different from each other because they
are at different evolutionary levels. .... These patterns have nothing
in common except the historic evolutionary process that created all of
them."
What I'm getting with regards to the World War 2 discussion, is that
while these levels are discreet, they are opposed to one another. My
evaluation of the origins of World War 2 being on an intellectual level
could be further explained by saying that this intellectual "pattern of
value" is in conflict with the "social patterns." This is what I mean
when I say:
Ben:
> World War 2 was the domination of social systems over intellect which
appeared in the form of fascism in Germany."
This is World War 2 from an MOQ point of view. Germany and Japan's
social systems were in domination over intellectual "patterns of
value", something which the Allied nations saw as immoral. World War
2 was a war between intellectual and social patterns of value, and the
closer the conflict between the two levels the more difficult it is to
see the correct moral pattern. The reason of "human rights" that I
have given as a trigger for WW2 stands up because it it morally
correct, and from an MOQ standpoint, a higher level of evolution over a
lower one.
By saying that the trigger for WW2 was a socially motivated war is
being one-dimensional, because it ignores that conflict between
discreet levels of evolution. Furthermore, a socially triggered war
infers that the war was between social and biological levels, which I
believe to be incorrect. I argued in my previous mails that the
"common-man" was not being bioligically threatened, and also didn't
trust the social systems to function on their own, and hadn't done
since the end of the Great War. Intellectual morality was still
struggling for control over social morality in the 1920s and the 1930s
and it is this conflict which was fought-out in WW2. Human rights
(intellectual) vs. Facism (social "pattern of value" of Germany).
So this is what I mean when I say that the war was an intellectual one.
If social systems were dominant in this country after World War I,
would WW2 have happened, and for the same reasons? The Great War was a
clash of social systems, and has been proven to be a pointless war.
Does that clear things up?
Ben Segust
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