From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Mon Jul 25 2005 - 10:41:27 BST
Hi Paul,
Snip a lot of agreement, to get to the nubs:
>>I don't think the whole web responds to Quality. I think there is a spider
>>in the middle of the web. (But a spider composed of the same substance as
>>the web)
>
> Paul: This is where I think you have to drop the "self-reweaving" idea
> then. You seem to be trying to slip in the conventional idea of a mind or
> a
> self which does the thinking.
I don't believe so ( at least, I don't think I'm trying to slip in the
CONVENTIONAL idea....), but it's perfectly possible. I don't think there is
anything other than intellectual patterns at the intellectual level, and I
don't think there is anything outside of the intellectual level responsible
for the decision making (consistent display of preferences) - other than
DQ, of course.
To use the hardware/software analogy, I am saying that there is something
equivalent to an operating system, around which other intellectual patterns
aggregate, and which structures the inter-relationship between them.
I agree that the operating system is 'uploaded' from the social level, and
that the social level is responsible for much of the 'code'. But I don't
think the social level determines the whole character of the OS, I think
that the OS is able to respond directly to DQ, and that it is this response
of the OS to DQ which determines the selection of other intellectual
patterns.
So when a mathematician explores equations and seeks the path of Quality, it
is the OS which is driving the selection and interpretation of patterns -
even though the OS is itself a pattern in just the same way as the other
patterns.
Some programs are more or less dispensable to the OS. Others were tied up
with the OS at such an early stage, and which then helped to determine the
subsequent evolution of the OS, that removing them would terminate the OS
and leave it perpetually hanging.
>>I
>>think the GPTs are simply more or less useful filing systems, and that
>>they
>>are perennially modifiable.
>
> Paul: More or less useful, sure. Not sure about filing systems though.
> Is
> e=mc2 a filing system? Modifiable? Yes, of course, but not sure it
> happens
> perennially. It would take a lot of rapid reweaving to do that.
By filing system, I am referring to a pattern used to organise other
patterns. By that standard I think e=mc2 would indeed qualify. And I would
also argue that it is modifiable - all of science is modifiable, as history
shows.
>>Let's consider the brujo. In just the same way that the carbon atom
>>exploits
>>a tiny crack of freedom in order to establish the inorganic level, so too
>>the brujo was able to exploit the tension between his traditional society
>>and the incoming westerners in order to act in response to Quality. It was
>>clearly not activity governed by the social level (which repudiated him)
>>even though it was an activity aimed at helping them (he went back and
>>took
>>up a position of authority there).
>
> Paul: I think the point of the brujo story was to illustrate the role of
> Dynamic Quality in creating new static patterns i.e. the activity was
> "governed" by DQ and not by any static patterns. It is where he
> introduces
> the static-Dynamic distinction after all.
So the brujo is a cypher? RMP describes freedom as action in accordance with
DQ, so there is presumably not a contradiction between saying that the brujo
freely chose certain actions and that DQ governed them? (Which is therefore
exactly the same as the classic Christian account of free will).
In which case I'm still interested in how the DQ was actualised, ie how the
DQ interacted with the various static patterns. From my point of view the
brujo's own decision making process is the explanation. If the brujo's own
decision-making process was not part of the actualisation of DQ then you
need to come up with an alternative explanation, which I would be most
interested in reading.
> Paul: I think truth with respect to honesty (as in, "I'm telling the
> truth") is not quite the same as e.g. mathematical, scientific or
> philosophical truth.
Why? I would agree 'not quite the same', but I think the differences tend to
get overemphasised, and the similarities overlooked.
> I agree that truth is better described as ontological
> rather than epistemological in the sense that truth is a species of static
> quality.
OK
> Paul: Tell me more about "an individual mind of autonomous integrity."
> It
> is one of those pleasant phrases (good for epitaphs and the like) which
> brings forth nods of approval without bringing any clarity to the
> proceedings.
> The thing is, I think honour and integrity are celebrated virtues of the
> social level, or at least, there is social integrity and intellectual
> integrity so it doesn't suffice as the cleavage term we are looking for.
I think the cleavage term is 'autonomous'; the 'individual mind' is a bit
superfluous after that. See my eudaimonic essay for why.
But integrity is worth spending more time on, because I see the integrity as
being the aggregation of intellectual patterns into forms governed by the OS
so that they become consistent. It may well be that complete consistency of
patterns is unachievable, but that is what the OS strives for (because
integrity is of higher Quality than the lack thereof).
The selection and development of intellectual patterns, eg in science,
depends upon patterns of intellectual integrity, eg honesty. And that isn't
simply a social level pattern, because it seems to me that the social level
has no use for honesty as such, because societies don't necessarily benefit
from honesty; a different scale of values applies. Whereas the fourth level
seems to me to be precisely structured by those values - the fourth level
_could_not_exist_ without the value of honesty. It is honesty which
structures the fourth level (along with other elements).
Which is why I think the virtues are the presiding values of the fourth
level. Because of our experience of 2500 years of the virtues, whereby they
have influenced the social level hugely, we now think that the virtues are
social level (because there is a lot of social level pressure in favour of
honesty). But they are derived from the fourth level. I would suggest that
honesty did not exist before 3000 years ago. But I'm not a comparative
anthropologist, so I can't comment authoritatively on that.
So when I talk about an individual mind of autonomous integrity I'm saying
that it requires an intellectual pattern of that sort to respond to DQ. The
Einsteins and Bohrs of this world. If they were dishonest, they would not be
able to assess evidence properly.
Or, to put that another way, only the holy can see truly.
Sam
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