From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Jan 30 2003 - 18:48:12 GMT
Hi Wim:
> I don't agree with Platt (as does David B.) that 'as soon as you
> bring in "others" you're into social level patterns'. I simply don't know
> how to explain the stability of intellectual patterns of value if I don't
> bring in 'others'. The ideas in my head which are never expressed in
> conversation or correspondence with others are not very stable at all... I
> usually forget them much faster than the ones I repeat in conversation and
> correspondence or the ones that are repeated at me. I don't exclude the
> possibility of sets of ideas that keep popping up in my without being
> consciously associated with social interaction, but to me it seems the
> exception that proves the rule, that makes it into a 'pattern' rather than
> a 'law of nature' (a pattern of value that is latched at a lower level).
IMO it isn't necessary for a pattern to last for a specific length of time in
order to be defined as a stable pattern, especially at the intellectual
level where, being the last to evolve, it is the most volatile. But those
"sets of ideas" your refer to are precisely what I mean by a stable
intellectual pattern independent of the approval of others. A review of
your posts over time will reveal a very stable set of ideas that could be
easily described as Wim's intellectual pattern, just as a review of my
posts would show the same. In fact, hasn't this site proven just how
difficult it is to change anyone's personal, largely unspoken pattern of
intellectual values?
> I'm not politically conservative at all, but I don't agree with you either,
> David, that political conservatism is at a lower level in the sense that it
> stands for a social pattern of value, whereas 'our' pet -isms stand for
> intellectual patterns of value. Pirsig agreed on that! (But I haven't time
> to look it up any more.) For me all -isms that stand for sets of ideas
> stand for intellectual patterns of values.
But even if you and I and Pirsig all agree that conservatism isn't a social
pattern of value (thereby establishing an intellectual value pattern with
"others"), David's pattern is still viable and valid as far as he is
concerned. As soon as you adopt the premise that "others" determine
stable intellectual patterns, you open yourself up to the "Emperor's New
Clothes" objection.
Platt
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