From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Tue Jun 14 2005 - 16:11:03 BST
Platt,
--- Do you not recognize that language, engineering principles and
--- institutions were created by individuals? That somebody had to be first?
Paul: Unless you seriously think that one person sat down and worked out an
entire language from scratch, this argument amounts to little more than
pointing out that groups, societies, libraries, schools etc. are made up of
individuals, which, of course, I agree with.
--- Language, principles and public institutions did not just drop from the
--- sky like rain. The MOQ tells us they were all created from responses by
--- individuals to DQ -- from the response of a carbon molecule to the DQ
--- force to the response of the Brujo to "a vague sense of betterness."
Paul: Yes, but I can say the same thing to you -- carbon molecules...well
okay...brujos don't just drop from the sky like rain. The individual carbon
molecule, responding to DQ, didn't turn into a brujo directly, on its own.
--- It's the individual, stepping outside the current static level, whether
--- the inorganic or social level, who drives evolution.
Paul: Yes, but see below.
--- To create the MOQ, Pirsig the individual, rose above static SOM
--- intellect.
---
--- No one else, least of all a public institution or a collective
--- consciousness, can lay claim to the authorship of ZMM and Lila.
Paul: Oh Platt, not you as well...you and Ham with your bleeding
"collective consciousness." What on earth is a collective consciousness?!
Regarding the authorship of ZMM and LILA, see below.
--- Without doubt the static social "public" level is important. It supports
--- like a base camp the inquirers of the high country. But, it's those
--- individual explorers of the aesthetic continuum beyond the peaks who
--- produce the new and better.
Paul: Fortunately for me, we had this conversation already, so if I may
take the liberty of repeating it below?
On 5th August 2004, Platt said about evolution occurring person by person:
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 replied: 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.
[On 5th August 2004, I followed up with another post:]
In the last post I questioned the role of individuals in the process of
evolution and, in particular, the notion that individuals cause evolution
and this needs a little more explanation. I haven't the time to give this
the amount of clarity I would like, but I wanted to add a little more to it
here by way of summary and perhaps conclusion.
We may speak of a "step" in evolution. By this we may mean when latching of
new patterns occurs sufficiently to maintain that pattern's existence with
some stability. Just how the completion of this step can be precisely
defined is debatable but not at issue here. When such a step is noticed we
may look to find the first instance of this new pattern and suggest that
this is where and when the "evolution" first occurred/began and may even
confuse this with the cause of evolution. Because the length of time from a
new pattern emerging to the completion of such an evolutionary step is
evidently shorter as we go up the levels, when it comes to intellect it is
easier to determine a time and a place, and a person, with which to
associate this evolutionary step. When a step takes decades, centuries, or
millennia, as can happen with social, biological and inorganic advances it
becomes harder to identify such an origin and so we may look more to a
combination of factors which brought about evolution rather than an
individual.
What I am highlighting is that it is, to some degree, always a combination
of factors which brings about evolution, even when we "pinpoint" an
individual. For example, Pirsig wasn't born with the MOQ. Before he
arrived at the theory, as an infant he learned which things to notice, he
learned the English language, he gained an education, trained as a
biochemist, studied Indian philosophy, experienced Native American mysticism
with Dusenberry, taught freshman composition etc. All of these things,
along with Dynamic Quality, shaped the MOQ. You can take any one of these
things and trace its evolution back to a time when the individual called
Robert Pirsig didn't exist, before the social pattern of the US existed,
before the English language existed - all the way back. In this long, long
view of things, I think you can see how it makes sense to view patterns as,
in an important sense, independent of *particular* individuals.
On the other hand (and I have not denied this throughout the dialogue),
without society, and biology, and matter, there are no intellectual
patterns. And you and I agree that all of these levels of patterns compose
individuals who live and die, and who, whilst living, are an evolutionary
relationship between Dynamic and static quality. It may be that the meaning
of death can be broadened to refer to the loss of the ability to respond to
Dynamic Quality. I don't know.
--- If this be asinine, make the most of it. :-)
Paul: Not asinine Platt, just wrong. ;-0
Regards
Paul
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