RE: MD Two Theses in the MOQ

From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Wed Nov 30 2005 - 05:25:43 GMT

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    [Platt]
    Wrong. Horse followed after Diana who had the original concept for the MD
    and without whom Horse, Dan, you and me and everyone else who contributes
    to the MD would still be blowing in the winds of anonymity.

    [Arlo]
    So, hypothetically, if Diana had been killed in a tragic car accident when she
    was young, there would be no discussion forum for the MOQ? I dunno, Platt, it
    seems pretty obvious that one would have emerged. Or perhaps, in Platt speak, I
    could say the MD always existed, floating in space, for billions of years,
    waiting for the levels to "flower", so that it could finally manifest itself.

    Sadly, what you continue to miss in your illusive quest for the Randian isolated
    "creator" is that Diana's "creation" would not only have not been possible
    without the collective consciousness and ongoing historical dialogue (of which
    it further enables), but that according to Pirsig's evolutionary MOQ, higher
    levels "use" lower level organisms for their own end. The MOQ, as an
    Intellectual level organism, would likely have found a way to maintain a
    dialogue even in the absense of any one precious "creator". Just as social
    level organisms use biological level organisms, so do Intellectual organisms
    use social level ones, as Pirsig says, "in the way a farmer uses a chicken".
    But of course you miss this, you red blood cell you, spending all your time
    shouting "Rand says there is nothing higher than me!", while all around you the
    MOQ is happening, emerging from the collective activity of social beings, as
    part of what Pirsig calls "the collective consciousness of all communicating
    mankind", owing to many, evolving because of many, and emergent as something
    greater than any "one".

    Diana is a voice in that choir, as is Horse, as are you, as am I (although my
    singing voice is pretty aweful). Our "individual" voices are like individual
    red-blood cells. The MOQ is the emergent "body". Some "individual" voices may
    indeed be keystone species (heart cells), while others carry the strength to
    alter the entire organism (DNA), while others still are not keystone, but
    peripheral voices, adding color and life. But from all these voices emerges the
    MOQ. Which, if you believe the MOQ, is an organism with a life of its own, as
    the Giant emerges from biological activity, the MOQ emerges from social
    activity.

    Arlo

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