From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Mon Nov 21 2005 - 07:01:30 GMT
Hi Case
We ended our exchange some time ago as you confessed that
you considered the MOQ to be nonsense, after that I did not
bother and I wonder why you bother The strange thing however is
that so many begin by declaring the MOQ rubbish and/or some
other philosopher to be their favorite (Scott/Barfield and
Matt/Rorty) but they stay and are gradually "converted" or
pretend to be to have someplace to talk. So beware! ;-)
19 Nov. you wrote:
> [Case]
> I have no problem with talking about Levels in metaphorical terms.
> After all every college catalog I have even seen divides the subject
> matter up in this way. But the MoQ seems to elevate this to a set of
> articles of faith. My other problem with it is, it seems to have no
> real practicle application.
Fist, even if inorganic, biological ...etc. are known concepts it
does not mean that they have the same content in the MOQ. You
must understand the initial Quality=Reality axiom to understand
the content they get in the MOQ. I now that everybody hates to
be told anything, around here there are only chiefs, no indians.
The levels aren't elevated to articles of faith but the MOQ says:
Let's examine reality from the DQ/SQ premises and compare it to
the S/O premises and see what cames up on top and as far as I
can judge the MOQ wins hands down.
No real practical application? You must have slept through your
MOQ classs - or not attended any. It solves all platypi that the
S/O metaphysics have created and that is no small feat..
> All of the discussions I have read in the
> MD have almost scrupulously avoided anything close to the concrete. It
> is mostly about the social and intellectual levels and how to define
> terms that might apply to one or the other.
We began back in 1996 and after the start the inorganic level was
the center of attention with one Doug Renselle producing endless
tables of sub-inorganic - quantum - stuff, then the biological and
it's relationship to the social with Magnus Berg the proponent of
societies galore - of cells for instance - carrying societies deep
into the biological realm. So you are far from being a pioneer.
> What I want to know, for example, is what level would one place a
> corporation or a government into.
"Social" seems the obvious answer, but you sound ready to close
some trap behind anyone saying so. The thing is that
organisations and governments of the Western culture are so
thoroughly intellect-controlled that their original social value
doesn't show very well, while a Somalian klan or Amazon tribe
are more pure social patterns.
> And having located them in a level
> would they be considered separate species or members of the same
> species.
Yet governments, organizations, corporations, are social deep
down and will - if the bells toll - show their real quality. After Sep.
11 the USA (along with the whole Western establishment)
reverted to social values for a short while, patriotism, flag-waving
and willingness "to fight terrorism" even if it would cost lives, but
now intellect has got the upper hand again and the the Iraqi war
is considered "illegal" and withdrawing is considered ...etc.
> This kind of anaysis would at least put the levels to good
> use. It would let us look at how what we have discovered about biology
> would apply to a higher level. It has been suggested that bee colonies
> and ant hills can be regarded as individuals in their own right with
> the ants and bees functioning more like cells. Aren't companies,
> governments and churches analagous to this?
This was the said "Magnus Berg" point. Pirsig's says we just
have to cut a level off somewhere, but this is a "meek" solution.
As I see it these things shows the upper-level-out-of-the-lower
point, another facet of the most prominent MOQ tenet that only
the DQ/SQ split is real, the static levels aren't: When examined
far enough they will reveal their roots in the ts parent level.
Intellect will show its social origin, society will dissolve into
biology, and nobody has ever found the biological/inorganic
dividing line and finally: Inorganic matter will dissolve into
quantum weirdness when examined far enough.
> Don't these institutions
> live or die according to the same ecological rules that govern
> biological life forms? If corporations, governments churches and the
> like can be regarded as entities in this way do they constitute a
> fifth level?
As said above ...
> This of course is just me yammering on but I find these much more
> interesting questions than whether or not intellect and consciousness
> can be defined.
The 4th level - if seen as consciousness - can never be defined,
but it's my hope that we may rid it of this mind-load that so many
weigh it down with and restore it to the S/O value it was meant to
be.
Bo
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