From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Sat Jun 07 2003 - 15:25:39 BST
Dear Sam,
The next round of grilling your version of the MoQ. (-:
You wrote 21 May 2003 12:41:12 +0100:
'I like your definition of the third level (unconscious copying of behavior
patterns) but I don't like your definition of level 4. But we've discussed
that. Yours does seem more compatible with Pirsig's, agreed. I think if
we're going to discuss if something can be legitimately called a "MoQ" ...
we need some criteria to apply in judging.'
I suppose that you're willing to define the 3rd level as patterns of value
maintained (latched) by unconscious copying of behavior.
Your definition of the 4th level in comparable terms would than be: patterns
of value maintained (latched) by autonomous individuals. Autonomy requires
having achieved a sufficient level of 'Eudaimonia' to dissociate one's self
consciously from 3rd level patterns of behavior and to choose to act
differently, out of line with the 3rd level pattern. As you wrote in your
essay: 'It is this ability to discriminate as an individual, and not
just as a social unit, which I see as the essence of the fourth level.' The
patterns of value these autonomous individuals maintain (latch) are
consciously created patterns of activity motivated by their enhancement of
'human flourishing'.
You expressed 19 May 2003 12:14:14 +0100 some agreement with my idea that
'autonomous individuals are only a result of 4th level patterns of values,
not their essence' and that 'the autonomy of individuals depends on the
autonomy of the intellectual level from the social level.'
To the extent that 4th level patterns of values come first and only after
that autonomous individuals 'instantiating them' (whatever that may mean;
it's not in my dictionary), you can't define 4th level patterns of values
and the 4th level by referring to autonomous individuals or their choices.
Your 4th level patterns of value must have some sort of independent
existence from autonomous individuals. Your 'eudaimonic scale of values'
that somehow defines your independently existing 4th level patterns of value
must inhabit some Platonic world of ideas distinguishable from human
experience.
In my opinion that's difficult to reconcile with the idea that (static)
value and quality are forms of experience and -together with Dynamic
Quality- comprise all there is, all experience and all that exists.
If 4th level patterns of value are consciously created patterns of activity
motivated by their enhancement of
'human flourishing' and 3th level patterns of value consist of unconsciously
copied patterns of behavior, you run into problems classifying consciously
created patterns of activity motivated in other ways than by 'human
flourishing'.
What about conscious activities to promote the flourishing of a
community/society/group for instance? And what about conscious choices to
ASSOCIATE one's self with 3rd level patterns of behavior? Don't they
constitute a 4th level 'justification of existing social patterns' (in
Pirsig's words in 'Lila's Child', annotation 52 in the published version)?
You could reply that individuals can autonomously evaluate some social
patterns of value as enhancing 'human flourishing' AND 'social flourishing'
simultaneously. It's the autonomous decision that counts to classify
conscious action in line with existing social patterns of value as a 4th
level pattern of value. Autonomy requires
the ability to act out of line with 3rd level patterns, but that doesn't
rule out conscious action in line with them.
But what about conscious action to surrender to (not group choices, but)
divine guidance? Does doing God's will imply enhancement of 'human
flourishing'???
You wrote 21 May 2003 12:41:12 +0100:
'I don't like your definition of level 4 [patterns of conscious motivation
for action]. But we've discussed that.'
So you may not like either my rephrasing of your definition of level 4 (in
an attempt to compare our definitions) as 'consciously created patterns of
activity motivated by their enhancement of "human flourishing"'
I'm afraid I don't remember discussing with you my definition of level 4.
Only your (changing) understanding of level 4. Could you rephrase your
arguments against my definition (or refer me back to them)?
You also wrote 21 May:
'I would dispute that the "eudaimonic" MoQ does not use discrete levels - I
think that it does, and perhaps the problem was some ambiguity in the
language of the essay itself. So let me expand on this here, and see if
these further thoughts help.'
I'm afraid that your 'further thoughts' only confirm my idea that the 3rd
and 4th level in your version of the MoQ are much less separate than the 1st
and 2nd or 2nd and 3rd level.
You wrote:
'level 3 patterns that dominate have in turn been modified due to level 4
innovations or guidance'
But can you imagine 1st level patterns of value (that can be described by
the laws of physics) being modified by 2nd level innovations or guidance??
Or 2nd level patterns of value (the patterns in which ecosystems, species
and physiology function and evolve) by the unconscious copying of behavior
by humans??
Maybe you think agriculture qualifies as an example of the last as you
wrote:
'The invention of agriculture, for example, I think I would classify as a
level 3 DQ innovation, geared around moderating level 2 patterns in favor
of the level 3 societies, i.e. it is the values of level 3 that led to its
uptake.'
I don't see agriculture change 2nd level patterns of value however. It only
uses them, it turns the freedom inherent in 2nd level patterns of value to
the benefit of higher level values. A wild potato and a potato that is
bred to grow larger and more nutritious tubers follow the same 2nd level
patterns of value, just as a snowflake and an airplane follow the same 1st
level pattern of value (gravitation), despite appearances to the contrary.
(By the way, in my reckoning the invention of agriculture dates from after
the appearance of the 4th level. It required for instance symbolic patterns
standing for seasonal changes and a wider time-horizon than hominids with
only 3rd level patterns of value could muster.)
I still detect an inconsistency between your:
'from the beginning of history all human beings participate to some extent
in level 4'
and
'Level 4 has ... origins are fairly obscure (Homer?)'.
Didn't history start far before Homer?
It seems impossible to me that what you refer to as 'level 3 complexity
(i.e. economic health and social organization)', 'writing ... as an
intra-level 3 DQ innovation' and 'conflict between competing societies
[with] trade to develop communication links' can be covered by 'unconscious
copying of behavior patterns'. Such phenomena require consciously motivated
action, too.
'The development of the autonomous "self"' is by no means a discrete break
that is comparable with the development of the DNA-copying mechanism or the
development of material culture that is passed on between generations of
groups of humans. At the time of your 'break' individuals with and without
such an 'autonomous self' were hotly debating with each other why they acted
as they did, i.e. why they did or did not choose against social mores. They
must have functioned at the same (4th) level or the supposedly lower-level
individuals would not have known what the others were talking about.
You are quite unclear about what is the first static latch of your 4th
level. Is it the 'autonomous individual' itself? but you wrote that it
developed over time (in other words: autonomy is a matter of degree). Or is
it 'rhetoric' that fosters the autonomous 'self'?
I agree that there is a 'jump' to a higher level of consciousness when an
individual starts to assess a set of values that in a sense formed him. But
one can describe a lot of comparable 'jumps' to higher levels of
consciousness (that's the trade Wilber is in) and none of them seems much
more 'discrete' than others. (See David B.'s 31 May 2003 18:35:18 -0600 post
for an overview.) Why not simply see them all as subdistinctions within the
4th level?
If you would concede that, we could go on to discuss the relative advantages
and disadvantages of alternative ways of subdividing the 4th level:
pre-Eudaimonic/Eudaimonic/post-Eudaimonic scales of value, Wilberian levels
of consciousness, the Kierkegaardian typology etc..
This type of discussion was in fact started by Pirsig in 'Lila's Child'
with:
'After the beginning of history inorganic, biological, social and
intellectual patterns are found existing together in the same person. I
think the conflicts mentioned here are intellectual conflicts in which one
side clings to an intellectual justification of existing social patterns and
the other side intellectually opposes the existing social patterns. A social
pattern which would be unaware of the next higher level would be found among
prehistoric people and the higher primates when they exhibit social learning
that is not genetically hard-wired but yet is not symbolic.'
Why not recognize WITHIN the 4th level
- justifications of 2nd, 3rd and 4th level patterns of value (comparable to
Kierkegaards typology!),
- ways of motivating patterns of activity that reflect different levels of
consciousness,
- different scales of values (e.g. pre-Eudaimonic/Eudaimonic/post-Eudaimonic
ones) against which to judge good/evil of one's actions?
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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