Now I wish to ask everyone this question:
> If 'intellect' is the category with most freedom, what is going to come
I order to engage in the question of "next freedom", we have first to clear
the issue of "existing freedoms", meaning how do the existing freedoms look
like?
In order to do that I will apply Darwin's advice and "start from the
middle". I will try to describe what is the freedom achieved by going from
Biological SPQ [Static patterns of quality] to Social SPQ, and from Social
SPQ to Cultural SPQ [what Pirsig calls Intellectual SPQ, and is confusing
everybody ever since]
Here I will start from the middle once again and start describing Social
SPQ.
The agent of this level SPQ is a social entity, it can be a citizen
[regarding a state] or a family member or a family [regarding a family] , a
complex creature of the social order the laws in this level are laws of the
society, laws of this state etc..
If we go one step down the ladder [to Biological SPQ] we will be put once
again under the law of survival [or the law of the jungle], meaning that the
laws in force are those which have to do with survival of the self or of the
specie. Here is clear that by going to a higher plane , we as individuals
free ourselves from the laws of survival, but in the same time we are no
more the Biological entity we used to be, but a Social entity. By being a
member of a society, we free ourselves from the Biological laws order, not
as individuals but as members of a society. So this freedom incorporates a
bondage too, namely to identify ourselves as a member of society as a
complex creature, and accepting it's laws [SPQ], and the various way to
alter them. If we want to be free of societies laws, we can [as societies]
enter in the next level, the Cultural level. Here the laws will be shared by
many societies, but societies [or social entities] will be the agents active
there. Cultural SPQ will be for instance laws of Economics, laws of
Chemistry, laws of International Transport, laws of Internet, all that many
[and different] social entities share. Religion and Science used to be once
of a society [Social SPQ] and now are Cultural SPQ, hence broke free of the
society which formed them and have many social agents [from different
societies] work within their laws. The freedom gained here is to be free
from Social SPQ, especially those who lost their quality and turned into
dogmatic rituals or way of thought WITHIN a certain society. This freedom to
answer the laws of Physics [regardless to a society's belief] is a freedom
gained from this going up a level. What we loose is is that the active agent
is a social entity [a social institution], and in order to implement
Cultural realizations we have to convince the social institutions to accept
what SPQ that were realized on the higher Cultural level.
Now if we will look for the same patterns below the Biological level, we can
IMAGINE and SUGGEST [but not know], what freedom was gained by going up a
level [from Inorganic to Biological]. Here the agent cannot be biological,
it has to be of the "photonic" order. It has to apply to laws of gravity,
and has to interact with any other entity of the same order [known as
material]. It cannot move it cannot choose with whom to interact, SPQ like
distinctions between Food [positive high quality interactions] and Poison
[negative low quality interactions] and movement belong to the Biological
order. But it looses in order to be part of an Organism [a Biological SPQ]
it's photonic entity as individual, choosing when to disintegrate [when
radioactive] or when to be energy or mass [as a photon].
So here I want to stress three outcomes:
1. We don't know how many layers are [here Pirsig is mistaken]. We can only
imagine FROM OUR CURRENT POINT OF VIEW, four layers. But nobody can be sure
that there are more ladder steps in either directions.
2. If this model is right, then "the next freedom" will be freedom of
Cultural SPQ, freedom of beliefs, freedom of ideas, but it will be managed
by Cultural agents [complex creatures of the Cultural plane]
3. Complex creatures are complex only from our point of view, for a photon
Biological creatures are complex.
4. These layers are not so independent as Pirsig potraited them. But this is
another Subject.
and don't forget to be gentle
Avid
icq 6598359
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