From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Thu Dec 01 2005 - 05:07:16 GMT
[Platt]
I can't prove a negative. But, what do you suppose is happening elsewhere
that is different than what happened here? I've always been told the laws
of physics are universal.
[Arlo]
You made a categorical claim that inorganic "innovation" is no longer occruing.
I simply pointed out that this is likely false. As to whether evolution is
occuring on a planet billions of lightyears to here in parallel to our own, I
would consider to be possible, but improbable. On the lower levels, evolution
may indeed show more parallel, but on the upper levels, I'd say that the
changes are likely enormous. But, its all supposition.
[Arlo previously]
Bad, bad analogy, Platt. The train can function without cars.
[Platt]
It can? A train consisting of just an engine? I don't think so.
[Arlo]
You're losing me. Why couldn't a train run with just the engine?
[Platt]
So a train responds to DQ? That's a new one on me. I suppose your lawn
mower does, too.
[Arlo]
Stay focused, Platt. It was an analogy, speaking of "trains" in the abstract.
[Platt]
Danielle Steele makes no claim to authoring a philosophy. What Wikipedia
says about Rand's acceptance by left-wing university philosophy
departments could as well be said about Pirsig. So, are we to conclude
that Pirsig's work "just ain't no good?"
[Arlo]
To be honest, if in 50 years it is as ignored as Rand, then, yes, Platt, I'd say
the MOQ failed to develop anything worthwhile. Although I know there is a need
there to "blame" some vast "liberal conspiracy" for why your (and Rand's) ideas
are ignored at the Academy, but many ideas fail in the Academy, and your
"left-right" dichotomy is not the scale. James and Peirce are taught everywhere
and held in high esteem, are they part of "liberalism"? We read Kant, and Plato
and Sarte and Wittgenstein. Not to mention Saussere, Searle, Nietzsche and
Aquinas. I've had philosophy courses where we read Jefferson, Locke and Mill.
All these all part of the "vast liberal conspiracy in the curriculum"? No. Just
people with much better ideas, ideas worth reading and voices worth
appropriating.
[Arlo previously]
(Your body) is really the collective activity of millions of cells, giving rise
to something greater than themselves. Do you deny this?
[Platt]
Magically "giving rise to?" Yes, I deny this. Just as I deny that
sufficient complexity gives rise to consciousness.
[Arlo]
Nice addition, "magically", as if I said that. You believe, then, that "Platt"
existed billions of years ago, that human bodies existed before cells
collectively formed them? What about your "consciousness", Platt? Where did
that come from? Was it there "since the beginning, waiting to flower"? How,
praytell, in Plattland, does the human body emerge from collective cell
activity? Or, if it doesn't emerge from this, where does it come from?
[Arlo previously]
Pirsig did. He writes, "Later he saw there was: this Giant. People look
upon the social patterns of the Giant in the same way cows and horses look
upon a farmer; different from themselves, incomprehensible, but benevolent
and appealing. Yet the social pattern of the city devours their lives for
its own purposes just as surely as farmers devour the flesh of farm animals. A
higher organism is feeding upon a lower one and accomplishing
more by doing so than the lower organism can accomplish alone."
[Platt]
Pirsig "sees" a metaphor, an intellectual pattern, which he, not a
commune, created.
[Arlo]
Again, use "commune" all you like. Its a valient rhetorical slant, but all it
does is show that you don't understand Pirsig. Pirsig is very clear in this
quote, social level patterns are a higher level organism than biological level
organisms (people) on whose collective activity they emerge, but are higher,
and use biological beings to further their own goals. The intellectual level
emerges from the social level in the same way.
And however much you find it necessary to cast me in abject opposition to your
grand ol' individualism by brandishing me a collectivist with no regard for the
individual, I'll add again, that yes, Pirsig did create this metaphor, but only
through the collective consciousness, through the language and historical
dialogue that he appropriate, through the many conversations he had with
friends, peers, historical personages, students and riding companions. Pirsig,
again, could be the "keystone species" of what we consider to be "that idea",
but it was formed, developed, nurtured and constructed socially.
How do you know, for example, that, say, someone he met at a bar one night
didn't suggest a somewhat similar metaphor. He thought about it, tightened it
up, and bounced it off his wife, who suggested something different. One night,
over dinner with friends, the four of them sat around and talked about this
idea for this metaphor, each contributing ideas until something stronger
emerged. During a proofread, an editor suggested using "Giant" instead of
"Collosus" (imagining that that was the word used it the draft). Pirsig likes
it, and okays it for the final version. Doesn't that sound even remotely to you
like the way the real world is? Pirsig, keystone species, but idea socially
constructed.
Even if you hold the mythical idea that Pirsig's thought magically appeared in
his brain without any social dialogue in the present, the voices in his head
are a social dialogue that is the historical dialectic, the "collective
consciousness of all communicating mankind". To be sure, this dialogue contains
his "unique propriatary experience", given voice through the saliences and
structures of the collective consciousness. And that is the "majesty" that is
the "individual-collective" on the social level, the force that gives rise to
emergence.
[Arlo previously]
You prefer the notion that "Physics" was out there in
space, billions of years ago, before time, before mass, just waiting for
things to "flower" so that it could "apply to something"? Thankfully,
Pirsig dismissed such foolishness early in his first book.
[Platt]
Oh, did he now? Show us. Above you refer to physics and other intellectual
patterns as "organisms." Strange, very strange.
[Arlo]
ZMM, early on. Don't make me copy it here, the post is too long to begin with.
You'll find it.
As for my use of "organism" to be strange. Well, Pirsig calles social patterns
"organisms", saying, "Yet the social pattern of the city devours their lives
for its own purposes just as surely as farmers devour the flesh of farm
animals. A higher organism is feeding upon a lower one and accomplishing more
by doing so than the lower organism can accomplish alone." And also, "When
societies and cultures and cities are seen not as inventions of "man" but as
higher organisms than biological man, the phenomena of war and genocide and all
the other forms of human exploitation become more intelligible... But the
superorganism, the Giant, who is a pattern of values superimposed on top of
biological human bodies, doesn't mind losing a few bodies to protect his
greater interests."
Although Pirsig did not use this term to describe intellectual patterns, I don't
think its a stretch. He says, " In this manner biological man is exploited and
devoured by social patterns that are essentially hostile to his biological
values. This is also true of intellect and society. Intellect has its own
patterns and goals that are as independent of society as society is independent
of biology."
In other words, the relationship between intellect and society is analogous to
the one between society and biology. If social level patterns can be seen as
"organisms" that emerge from collective biological activity (and I agree with
Pirsig that they can), then I hold that intellectual patterns can also be seen
as "organisms" that emerge from collective social activity.
Perhps you can show me where Pirsig disputes this?
Arlo
PS: "On Top of Old Smokey"?! Jeez, man, well, at least you didn't say "Oh,
Suzanna"!
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