From: Paul Turner (pauljturner@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Mon May 26 2003 - 22:29:23 BST
Hi David
On re-reading it, I've just noticed that your post was
addressed to Sam and Steve only.
I saw my name in the post and responded to the
subsequent comments. That'll teach me to butt in!
If they weren't aimed at me please disregard my
comments! On the other hand, they are replies to your
points that you may wish to respond to anyway :-)
cheers
Paul
--- Paul Turner <pauljturner@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
=== message truncated ===
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