From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Mar 31 2003 - 16:46:13 BST
Hi Steve:
P:
> > As I understand Pirsig, all the levels are moral codes of conduct or
> > patterns of behavior. The inorganic code are the laws of physics, the
> > biological code the laws of nature, the social code the Law, and the
> > intellectual level the laws of logic and the scientific method. Nowhere
> > do I find Pirsig mentioning a combination of two levels as a moral code.
S:
> The social code is not only the law. Social patterns existed well before
> laws. Most social patterns are not codified and we don't notice them
> (since we are so much a part of them) any more than a fish is aware of the
> water.
>
> I see law as an intellectual pattern of value. Laws themselves codify
> social morals, but the idea of written laws was an early example of
> intellectually guided society. Social morality is what most people think
> of when they think of morality. Pirsig extends the idea to the other
> levels.
Pirsig broadens your concept of law, as in the following passage:.
PIRSIG:
What the evolutionary structure of the Metaphysics of Quality shows is
that there is not just one moral system. There are many. In the
Metaphysics of Quality there's the morality called the "laws of nature,"
by which inorganic patterns triumph over chaos; there is a morality
called the “law of the jungle" where biology triumphs over the inorganic
forces of starvation and death; there's a morality where social patterns
triumph over biology, "the law"; and there is an intellectual morality,
which is still struggling in its attempts to control society. Each of these
sets of moral codes is no more related to the other than novels are to
flip-flops. (13)
> Codes of conduct are morals in the SOM sense, while the inorganic,
> biological, social, and intellectual levels are moral orders in a different
> sense. Relating them to moral codes of conduct was Pirsig's attempt to
> explain the MOQ and how it could be applied. Using the MOQ to guide
> actions is to deduce rules from from the moral order. As subjects and
> objects are deduced from experience, a code for behavior can be derived
> from the metaphysical moral orders but they are not equivalent to them.
Sorry. I don't follow you. Why do you deem it important to attempt a
distinction between codes of behavior and moral orders? Seems to me
it's as natural to speak of how certain atoms behave as how certain
spiders behave as how certain humans behave. Behavior occurs at all
levels. The key to the MoQ is that all behavior is moral. "The world is
composed of nothing but moral value" Pirsig writes at the beginning of
Chap. 8.
> You know Lila much better than I do, you must be right that Pirsig never
> mentions such a thing as an intellectual-social code. Anyway, I can't
> check for my self since I lent my copy to a friend. I didn't think I was
> making it up. I could have sworn Pirsig described human rights as part of
> a social-intellectual code.
Pirsig mentions the intellectual-social codes as subjective, the biological
-inorganic codes as objective. I couldn't find any reference to human
rights as part of a social-intellectual code. Maybe you're thinking of this
passage from Chap. 24:
PIRSIG
It says that what is meant by "human rights" is usually the moral code
of intellect vs. society, the moral right of intellect to be free of social
control.
> Even if I did make it up, wouldn't you agree that some social morals exist
> to control biological patterns and others to free the intellect and to
> understand social morality, we must see it in relation to the biological
> and intellectual levels? That's "the moral of the story" of Lila, right?
Social morals exist to control biological patterns, but no social morals
"free the intellect." Intellect frees itself. (See human rights quote above.)
Intellect and society are at odds. So are biology and society. So are
inorganic and biology. "The moral of the story" of Lila is the conflict
between these moral patterns and the battles for dominance and control
that constantly go on among them. These same battles go on in each of
us. Intellect, for example, must constantly fight against social
"intersubjective agreement" also known as "The Everybody Says So
Syndrome."
> To me, a behavior can be absolutely right for a specific time and place and
> for a specific person--not for the past, present, and future and for all
> people.
I challenged this in a previous post by quoting Pirsig.
P:
> > There's a new book out titled "Beauty: The Value of Values" by
> > Frederick Turner. He argues, "Beauty is at the core of our cognitive
> > abilities; it is also the core of our moral conscience." Later, "I
> > believe that the element of the ineffable, the mystical, the intangible
> > in beauty is the emergence of that divine mind." Sort of like Dynamic
> > Quality don't you think?
S:
> I'll think more about it, but my feeling right now is that aesthetic
> patterns are on a higher level than intellectual. Sam talked about the
> "three bests" a while back--the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. These
> words may describe high quality on three distinct levels.
Yes. My question is does "Good" encompass the True and the
Beautiful, or does the "Beautiful" stand above the Good and the True? I
favor the latter. Maybe the order should be Beautiful on top, then Good,
then True, with True the equivalent of Pirsig's intellectual level.
P:
> >After all, what "code" can one follow to assure creation of great art?
S:
> Here again is why I think you shouldn't think of the levels as codes. How
> also could one follow a code to create a tree?
Well, you've heard DNA described as a code. I wouldn't put it past some
biologist somewhere, sometime figuring out the code to create a tree.
> It's all patterns, not rules.
Please explain the difference between patterns, codes and rules. After all,
rules, like patterns, can be rigid or flexible, fixed or changeable.
> Artists participate in patterns on all four levels as they "create," though
> whatever is really original or creative is a response to DQ. Artists
> consciously try to open themselves to such experience and make it static.
> Great artists are even successful at communicating their experience to a
> degree.
Agree.
PIRSIG:
> "This aesthetic nature of the Conceptually Unknown is a point of
> connection between the sciences and the arts.
Pirsig's reference to "aesthetic nature" clicks with me. Why aesthetic? Why
did Dostoyesvski write, "Beauty will save the world." Why did Flaubert
say, "That which is beautiful is moral, that is all, nothing more." And
why did Ruskin challenge pragmatists with, "Remember that the most
beautiful things in the world are the most useless: peacocks and lilies
for instance."
To me, beauty presents all the mystery and wonder of Dynamic Quality.
What is beauty? I can't define it, but I know it when it walks into the
room. :-)
What is the role of beauty in your philosophy, i.e., your life?
Thanks,
Platt
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