From: Paul Turner (pauljturner@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Mon May 26 2003 - 21:04:16 BST
Hi David
> dmb says:
> As I and others have repeatedly tried to point out,
> this notion of the 4th
> level as mere abstraction doesn't look like the MOQ
> that I know.
Although I didn't say that the intellectual is only
abstraction, what is 'mere' about abstraction?
Static quality is an abstraction (meaning derivation,
selection, differentiation) from an undivided
experience (as synonomous with Dynamic Quality) at all
levels. It is never the whole unless the experience is
enlightenment in which there would be no self to talk
of experience.
I would argue that mental or intellectual abstraction
is only 'mere' in a S/O view of experience where it
would be 'subjective' and therefore unreal. In the
MOQ, intellectual abstraction is just as real as
inorganic, biological or social abstraction.
With regards to what I said, my words were 'universal'
or 'general' as a distinction between 'specific' or
'particular' and with explicit reference to spoken
language and other communication.
To support my thoughts:
PIRSIG: 'And he remembered that Franz Boas had said
that in a primitive culture people only speak about
actual experiences. They don't discuss what is virtue,
good, evil, beauty; the demands of their daily life,
like those of our uneducated classes, don't extend
beyond the virtues shown on definite occasions by
definite people, good or evil deeds of their fellow
tribesmen, and the beauty of a particular man, woman
or object. They don't talk about abstract ideas." Lila
Ch 32
I was sharing my thoughts with Sam and Wim as they
were discussing language in the context of the
discreteness of the 3rd and 4th levels of the MOQ.
The intellect may be seen as the perception through
the mind of an underlying repetitive order in the
dynamic stream of particular experience, we express
this in symbolic language and mathematics as
'concepts', 'rules' and 'laws' which transcend
specific experience and can be used within limits to
predict and ultimately exploit the 'rules' and 'laws'.
We may also express this perception in symbolic art,
the creation of something specific that can be
perceived by the senses but was originally perceived
through the mind.
> Pirsig says
> flat out that the 4th is more moral than the 3rd.
Yes, it is, I don't disagree with that.
> I
> honestly don't know why
> you REFUSE to admit that Pirsig ain't Spock.
(??) Pirsig ain't Spock. You have it in writing.
> I mean,
> the MOQ is largely an
> attack on amorality, especially at the intellectual
> level.
Yes. The MOQ is an intellectual pattern of value, it
is a manipulation of symbols that provides a high
quality explanation of experience. To me, it is better
than the current western 'common sense' explanation
approved by the social patterns of value of my
culture.
> The intellect
> that you're objecting to is SOM, which is exactly
> what Pirsig objects to.
I'm not objecting to the intellect.
> This is the whole point of Lila, no? Not just to
> attack SOM, but also
> replace it with the MOQ, which paints morals as the
> center and substance of
> everything.
Yes.
> Your insistence that a footnote from
> LILA'S CHILD defines the
> intellectual level as the ability to "manipulate
> symbols" also reduces the
> 4th level to mere abstraction.
"The intellectual level is the same as mind. It is the
collection and manipulation of symbols, created in the
brain that stand for patterns of experience."
This is Pirsig's definition of the intellectual level.
Maybe it doesn't fit your definition or Wilber's?
Again, what is 'mere' about abstraction?
> But given that Pirsig
> says all of life is an
> ethical activity, it seems quite unfair and
> wrong-headed to accuse Pirsig of
> such a thing.
What am I accusing him of?
> But more to the point, I almost answered Steve's
> question by accident
> earlier today, even mentioning Kohlberg's moral
> stages. Just as explicitly
> but even more specifically, we see that Wilber, via
> Kohlberg and others,
> that the developmental stages are not just
> cognitive, ie levels of
> abstraction, but also have a moral dimension that
> goes along with a
> particular sense of identity and outlook. Its all
> part of the way we look
> and the world and these various dimensions all
> develope together. That
> doesn't mean that smart people are always more
> moral. Unfortunately, we tend
> to see cognitive abilities as seperate from moral
> character and that tends
> to produce all kinds of lop-sided development and
> such, but I'll save that
> level of detail for another day.
>
> Wilber from his INTEGRAL PSYCHOLOGY: (emphasis is
> Wilber's)
> "Each time the self's center of gravity identifies
> with a new and higher
> basic wave of unfolding (level), it doesn't just
> have a new sense of
> IDENTITY, it has a new and higher VIEW of the world,
> with a wider and more
> encompassing set of MORALS and PERSPECTIVES. The
> pivotal figure here is
> Lawrence Kohlberg, whose work, building on tht of
> Baldwin, Dewey, and
> Piaget, demonstrated that moral development goes
> through six or seven
> stages. The individual starts out amoral and
> egocentric ("whatever I want"
> is what is right), moves to sociocentric ("whatever
> the group, tribe,
> country wants" is what is right), to
> postconventional (what is fair for all
> peoples, regardless of race, color creed).
Wilber's work is an intellectual pattern of value that
provides a high quality explanation of experience to
you, which may or may not be of higher quality than
the MOQ. Having not read Wilber I can't say, but the
MOQ is the best explanation I have.
Which is the best for you?
cheers
Paul
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