From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat May 31 2003 - 18:11:25 BST
Maggie, Steve and all:
Maggie said:
Some educators are interested in these types of understanding because as a
child develops, they see a "recapitulation" of the evolutionary process
within the child--not that each type develops fully before moving on to the
next, but the more primitive must exist before the higher can start to
develop.
dmb says:
Two pithy phrases spring to mind; Haeckel's "ontogeny recapitulates
phylogeny" and Wilber's "transcend AND include". Clearly, child development
is different than embryonal development, but they both share the idea that
our evolution as a species can be seen in the growth of each individual.
(The specific phrase, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" got 2,600 hits on
Google. Check it out.) Wilber's phrase not only correlates with the idea
that higher stages can start to develop only after the more primary ones are
in place, but also goes along with Pirsig's idea that all our intellectual
descriptions depend on the social level as its ground, so to speak.
Maggie said:
Now here's the neat thing. Modern humanity (each person) would contain an
archeological record of the evolution of those patterns. The very first,
most primitive forms of intellect formed the foundations of later ones.
They were passed on along with the later ones, and even when later types
were more powerful, they "use" the more primitive patterns as well.
Steve replied:
This is a interesting idea. If I understand you correctly, not only will a
person develop through the MoQ evolutionary levels as levels of awareness,
we can also see the evolution of better and better intellectual patterns
within individuals as they develop in perhaps the same order in which these
patterns evolved.
dmb says:
Right. Think about Pirsig's idea that we're each a forest of static patterns
and life is about the migration of those patterns toward DQ. It is a sort of
principle that lies behind both our collective evolution and personal
development at all levels. I should add that this idea describes not just
biological and psychological processes, but also spiritual, moral and just
about any developmental process that I know of. Its only a generalization,
of course. In fact, modern genetics has pretty much casued the demise of
recapitulation theories in biology, but the idea persists. Its also worth
pointing out that the ancient Greek philosophers hit on this kind of notion
long before modern biology came along. And if that's not enough, I can
report that this principle appeared to me as a profound truth during a
mystical experience. It had a way of connecting everything too, but I don't
think I could really put that into words. Its just too big.
Maggie said:
The other interesting possibility I see is this: Intellectual patterns are
stored in society. Any static intellectual pattern that manages to be an
"advantage" to society has to have been socialized--it has to have been
stored in the memory banks of society. Those sets of socialized
intellectual patterns congeal in individual humans and are passed on by
imitation.
Steve replied:
I like that you've distinguished the social level of the MOQ from society.
I was often mislead by missing this distinction when I first joined the
list. ...................................... I used to misinterpret such
statements as an intellectual pattern actually becoming a social pattern,
which is as impossible as a social pattern becoming a biological one.
Though "intellectual patterns congeal in individual humans [society] and are
passed on by imitation" they remain intellectual patterns.
dmb says:
Right. I think lots of people miss that distinction, which leads to all
kinds of confusion and misconceptions. An increased sense of individuality
is certainly a feature of the higher cognitive stages. There is less of a
herd mentality as we move up in the levels, but the collective or public
dimension of the intellectual level is a quite necessary feature too. Peer
review and all that. One has to understand the terms that science uses
collectively if one wants to understand things like E=MC2. In fact, one of
the most prominant and important features of the higher levels is an
increasingly wider perspective, so that the individual identifies with
increasingly larger and broader communities, from the family to the village
and from the nation the world, etc.. I think most of the confusion can be
avoided by simply using the word "culture" instead of "society". Both social
and intellectual level values can be found in the culture and within
individuals. Then we can say that intellectual values are absorbed into the
culture without any confusion, without encouraging the misconception that
4th level values somehow regress back into third level values once they're
widely known.
Thanks for your time,
DMB
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