From: Paul Turner (pauljturner@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Tue May 06 2003 - 15:18:20 BST
Hi David
To restate my original position on this matter, I saw
a logical problem with 3 statements in Lila, you know
the statements I mean.
Essentially, my point was that if SPOQ can’t perceive
or adjust to DQ by themselves and a living being, as
exemplified by Lila, is described as no more than a
cohesion of SPOQ, then following the logic, living
beings cannot perceive or adjust to DQ by themselves.
Clearly, there is something wrong there, either in the
MoQ or in my understanding.
One solution to this is that living beings are more
than SPOQ, I took this as the most likely but couldn’t
find a clear answer in Lila. So I asked the question:
in the MoQ, what is a living being?
Recently, Rick suggested reading the statements
specifically within the context in which the author
made them to gain clarity. When I do that I can see
two possible clarifications:
a) SOCIAL and INTELLECTUAL SPOQ can’t perceive or
adjust to DQ by themselves.
Does this mean that inorganic and biological SPOQ can?
Evolutionary lower SPOQ are able to perceive and
adjust to DQ rather than higher levels of SPOQ?
b) Killing biological SPOQ undermines the Dynamic
capabilities of a society because without biological
humans the social and intellectual SPOQ disappear.
Is a ‘living being’ then really limited to the
biological level? Are the next two levels not really
alive? Put another way, can you kill a society without
killing biological humans? If you can, do the
intellectual SPOQ it ‘supports’ die as well?
The MoQ says that a society is a higher form of
evolution than a biological human. It is described as
a superorganism. This is a real departure from SOM. We
are no longer viewing everything in terms of
substance. If you accept the MoQ you have to accept
that there is a higher form of evolution than your
body. There is a higher form of life. In fact, it says
there are two.
So when we come to talk about ‘living beings’ in the
MoQ we have to be clear what we mean, and not just
refer to some ‘obvious’ notion derived from ‘common
sense’ thinking which is actually a product of an
assumption that the world is made up of independent
and different ‘things’, which can be categorized
amongst other ways as ‘living’ and ‘non-living’.
dmb says:
It might
be
true that every normal healthy person is POTENTIALLY a
source of ideas,
and
that persons are the ONLY source of ideas, but I think
its pretty clear
that
there are many people in the world who have not yet
developed to the
intellectual stage.
Why are human beings the only source of ideas? In the
MoQ, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to say that the
only source of ideas is Dynamic Quality and they are
left behind as intellectual patterns of Quality? I
know, Pirsig says several times that human beings are
a source of ideas, but to me it doesn’t follow from
the rest of the MoQ evolutionary description why this
is the case. Ideas are a higher form of evolution than
human beings, or a human being is in some way, an
intellectual pattern of Quality.
Pirsig: ‘In a value metaphysics, society and intellect
are patterns of value. They’re real. They’re
independent. They’re not properties of “man” any more
than cats are the properties of cat food or a tree is
the property of soil’
Dmb: ‘Atoms and molecules can respond at the inorganic
level, but biology, society and intellect is beyond an
atom's abilities. The higher levels just don't
register. The laws of physics seem totally static, and
they certainly are more static than the higher levels,
but we can be fairly confident that the "physical"
universe evolved to its present state and, on a
quantum level, we can see that even
at this first level there is a certain amount of
choice. Likewise,
biological evolution is still going on even as we
speak (The SARS virus, for example).’
This is something I suggested in a previous post, but
there is a view on this forum that only intellectual
patterns of Quality can respond to DQ.
To me, if a static pattern of Quality is capable of
change, or has ‘a certain amount of choice’ then it is
alive. ‘Living being’ then may either be meaningless
(in that everything is alive to some degree) or be
referring to a particularly evolved form of ‘life’. My
interpretation is that it is the latter which most
people on this forum are defending. The particularly
evolved pattern of Quality which Pirsig meant was the
only biological pattern of Quality (the human being)
that has provided the static basis for DQ to create
social patterns of Quality, which have furthermore
provided the static basis for DQ to create
intellectual patterns of Quality.
Pirsig describes how evolution can be divided into
static and Dynamic functions all the way through the
levels. To me, the human being performs a Dynamic
function at the social level to keep society ‘alive’.
I’m still unclear about what is going on at the 4th
level. Following the MoQ description of evolution it
must be society that is performing the Dynamic
function to keep intellectual patterns of Quality
alive? Otherwise, we may as well have skipped the
social level.
What other conclusions can you come to? (This is not a
rhetorical question!)
If it is still human beings that are performing the
Dynamic function at the 4th level, isn’t that similar
to saying that Carbon Atoms are performing a Dynamic
function at the biological level? But isn’t that DNA?
Dmb: And the reason, clearly, that social and
intellectual changes
can
only occur through living humans, is that such values
are beyond all
rocks
and animals and everything, except for people. Only
people can perceive
the
3rd and 4th levels of static quality.
Ok, humans can perceive the 3rd level as static
quality, as social morality, or they can perceive DQ
as a completely new moral ‘choice’. But what ‘is’ the
human being at the 3rd and 4th levels? At the 3rd
level a biological human being is part of a higher
form of evolution, a superorganism called society. At
the 4th level, it would follow that the superorganism
called society is part of a higher form of evolution.
The whole common sense notion of a human being just
falls apart in this context.
It’s easy to see ‘biological’, ‘social’ and
‘intellectual’ as adjectives to describe a particular
person (or indeed anything), but in the MoQ, the
patterns of value are not ‘attached’ to a particular
person or thing. The particular person or thing is not
a primary reality in the MoQ, it is derived from the
patterns of value, in fact I would say that the
‘particular person’ is derived from a subject-object
division of reality and that the MoQ model of reality
is at an ‘explanation’ stage rather than something we
experience. It is a model we can apply to a reality
already derived from a S/O assumption so deep in our
consciousness that we can’t just switch it off
whenever a new model comes along. It certainly is for
me, and that may explain my lack of clarity!
You see, I can perceive the ‘aesthetic’ beauty of the
MoQ, so much of it simply feels right. When I first
read it 10 years ago I left it at that. I can see that
same beauty in Zen Buddhism and Taoism. But to me, as
a metaphysics, the MoQ must also have a different
beauty, a rational beauty, call it clarity. I can’t
see that yet.
And so I’m not going on about this as some
intellectual gym session, I want to understand the MoQ
and central to the metaphysics is the static-Dynamic
division of Quality and the relationship between the
two aspects. For me, ‘living being’ as an MoQ concept
seems key to understanding this relationship.
Anyway, to move on, in the context of Pirsig’s
statements that I started with, I can see that the
‘living being’ he referred to is:
a human being, which by being the only ‘thing’ that is
a cohesion of ALL levels of static patterns of Quality
has the unique capability of bringing about changes to
social and intellectual patterns of Quality by
perceiving and adjusting to Dynamic Quality
I can see the definition, I just can’t grasp what it
really means, what a MoQ human being is. I know how
absurd that sounds but there you are..
cheers
Paul
__________________________________________________
Yahoo! Plus
For a better Internet experience
http://www.yahoo.co.uk/btoffer
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue May 06 2003 - 15:19:03 BST