From: David Morey (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Thu Aug 05 2004 - 21:04:29 BST
Hi Paul
Things is an individual can evolve in a lifetime, so
the individual is something unique to the 4th level.
But this is just the outer 4th level shell in terms of
what the individual can create. Really the individual
is just the latest SQ things left in the wake of DQ.
There is only experience=DQ=freedom. Do we
call this experience human? It is for us here and now,
this is the level where the evolution is happening.
But once upon a time there was inorganic experience only
then came organic experience, social experience and then
intellectual experience. The individual is the expression of the growing
multiplicity (increasing expressive freedom) of DQ.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Turner" <paul@turnerbc.co.uk>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 10:37 AM
Subject: RE: MD The individual in the MOQ
> Hi Platt
>
> Platt said:
> Quality or Value contains levels of static value patterns plus Dynamic
> Quality. Substitute "An individual human being" for Quality or Value and
> the same description applies.
>
> Paul:
> Incorrect, it is made clear in ZMM and LILA that nothing "contains"
> Quality. Furthermore, from your statement above, one can deduce that
> "individual human beings" and "Quality" are synonyms. From this one can
> deduce that individual human beings are the primary reality from which
> everything else emerges.
>
> Get this the wrong way round and the MOQ becomes idealism.
>
> > Paul previously said:
> > I think memes are "contained" in language, habit and ritual.
>
> Platt said:
> I take this to mean that memes are not found in the intellectual level
> -- the level of mind -- but rather in the social level.
>
> Paul:
> I think memes can be both social and intellectual patterns. They are not
> genetically hard-wired so that rules out biological patterns.
>
> > Paul previously said:
> > Mind is symbol manipulation.
>
> Platt said:
> Sounds SOM to me. A subject (mind) manipulating objects (symbols).
>
> Paul:
> No, mind *is* symbol manipulation, it is not separate from symbols.
> Matter *is* "particle manipulation."
>
> Paul previously said:
> I am denying that, in the MOQ,
> > "individuals" have a discrete metaphysical significance that is
> somehow
> > essential in enabling a distinct level of static quality to latch. I
> don't
> > find this anywhere in Pirsig's work.
>
> Platt said:
> I do. "A tribe can change its values only person by person and someone
> has to be first." (Lila, 9) That's a description of the latching process
> at the social level, dependent on individuals, "person by person."
>
> Paul:
> Exactly, this is a description of latching at the social level, so this
> invalidates your argument that the 4th level is defined by "the
> individual." Biological patterns also change one organism at a time.
> Your definition is rendered meaningless - the individual has no discrete
> metaphysical significance to the 4th level.
>
> Platt said:
> It's also the latching process at intellectual or mind level. It's what
> is happening in this forum. We're latching the mind pattern of the MOQ,
> person by person.
>
> Paul:
> Okay. At the biological level, each organism is individual and unique in
> terms of its DNA. Yet, there is less than 1% difference between the
> whole species. Each organism is a kind of "copy" (although not an
> identical one) of the same patterns. At the social level, each member of
> a society is a unique set of social patterns. Yet, within each society,
> we clearly share copies of the same behaviours, habits, routines,
> language etc. I have my own personal set of learned vocabulary, but you
> would not say that I speak my own language. At the intellectual level,
> there are bodies of knowledge; each person is a unique copy and
> configuration of different patterns of knowledge. The pattern of the MOQ
> exists in "individual" copies, all slightly different, but just as we
> speak of homo sapiens sapiens, or the English language, we speak of the
> MOQ, or of General Relativity, or of algebra.
>
> I can make a couple of general comments about this.
>
> Firstly, when we say patterns, we may be shifting between reference to
> two different things - the individual "copies," or the generalised
> patterns the individuals are copies of. This may confuse things.
>
> Secondly, each level may be seen as more diverse than the previous
> level. The single (I'm sure there are arguments contrary to this)
> species of humans has developed many societies which have gone their own
> way. From within each of the societies that have survived there are many
> intellectual patterns which have also branched out in directions of
> their own. This may have a loose parallel with your argument that the
> 4th level is more individual than the 3rd, but I'm not sure.
>
> Thirdly, each level is quicker to change than the previous level.
> Species-wide DNA changes take generations. Revolutions, wars etc. can
> change societies many times within one human biological generation.
> Knowledge can change almost overnight. Now, because of the more
> noticeable change occurring due to the speed of evolution, I think it is
> clearly easier to associate such a change with individuals, but I
> question the idea that an individual has *caused* the evolution of
> knowledge in any deeper sense than an individual *caused* the evolution
> of the brain, or the English language. I think it is overly simplistic
> and dismissive of an overall historical process of evolution to think
> that way.
>
> Finally, as mentioned earlier, the copies of patterns that each
> individual is composed of are not identical. This may be of the most
> significance to you, I'm not sure.
>
> Platt said:
> My point is that it is more moral for individuals (value patterns with
> inquiring minds) to dominate mindless social patterns of conformity than
> for society to dominate individuals.
>
> Paul:
> This is either crafty or an oversight. First you highlight an
> individual's intellect and correctly state that it is moral for
> intellect to dominate society, but then you drop the intellect part and
> bring your general individual through the back door to allow you to
> state that it is immoral for society to dominate individuals.
>
> Platt said:
> Do you consider sensations to be free-floating biological level patterns
> without a source?
>
> Paul:
> No, I think the source of sensations is Quality. What a strange
> question.
>
> Platt said:
> "Dynamic Quality" is a phrase. So is "created patterns" and "by patterns
> created." So I fail to see your point. What am I missing?
>
> Paul:
> The Dynamic Quality that creates patterns is immediate experience and is
> understood without intellectual abstraction. The Dynamic Quality that is
> created by patterns is a static intellectual pattern. The two are not
> the same, which is what your quandary assumed.
>
> "The infinity which finitude makes us aware of is a secondary experience
> that grows out of intellect. It is not the same as the infinity out of
> which finitude grows. To put it in Zen terms, infinity is understood by
> subtracting finitude, not by making intellectual deductions from
> finitude." [Pirsig, Copleston Annotations]
>
> cheers
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
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