From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Jun 15 2003 - 01:32:13 BST
Steve:
Based on the quotes you provided, clearly DMB uses different definitions of
the static levels than Pirsig does. You should know that DMB also
considers some human beings to be biological patterns of values (e.g. Lila),
others to be social patterns of value (e.g. Rigel), and still others to be
intellectual patterns of values (e.g. DMB)--also directly contradicted by
one of the quotes you cited from Lila's Child.
dmb says:
Leaving the LC quotes aside, you've misrepresented my views here. I honestly
don't know what "different definitions of the static levels" you could be
talking about. As far as I know, Pirsig is the only one that has provided
such definitions.
Steve:
DMB would consider a school that teaches one set of beliefs (say, the
schools that gave Afghanistan the Taliban) to be a different type of pattern
of value than one which teaches a different set of beliefs (say, MIT). He
would consider a person who holds one set of beliefs to be a different type
of pov than one who holds different beliefs.
dmb says:
Again, you've put words in my mouth that I find quite distasteful. I post
often enough that you should be able to take on something I actually said.
(Although, I'd say the Taliban and MIT are quite different.) But the notion
that seems to be dispelled over and over is that I somehow think
intellectual level values can exist independently of the three levels that
support them. Perhaps if I put it in vivid terms this time the correction
will be more memorable. I DON'T BELIEVE THAT DISEMBODIED LOGIC SHOULD RULE
THE WORLD. I DON'T BELIEVE IN DISEMBODIED INTELLECT IS EVEN POSSIBLE.
Wherever there is intellectual values, there are ALL FOUR levels. You know,
the higher levels "INCLUDE and transcend" the loser ones, as Wilber puts it.
This is why is repeatedly use Pirsig's phrase, "a forest of static
patterns", to point out that when it comes to people its just a matter of
which patterns dominate that forest, where the center of gravity is. In
cultures and in individuals all the patterns are present and struggling to
assert themselves, its just a matter of which ones win that struggle.
Steve:
It is interesting to talk about what patterns of value dominate the behavior
of the people or the teaching of the school, but it doesn't make sense to me
to make a metaphysical distinction in kind between two human beings or
between two schools as we would between a dog and a scientific law or an
atom and a government.
dmb says:
Well, we're all basically social creatures. The metaphysical distinction, if
you can really call it that, is between levels of values. Just because the
various levels can exist within us simultaneously doesn't mean they loose
there distinction or effect what kind of person we are. Lila is littered
with examples from history and Pirsig apparently has no qualms about making
such calls about specific individuals or whole eras. Doesn't he explain in
LC that the characters in Lila are supposed to do exactly that?
"Intellectually, she's nowhere. Socially she's pretty far down the scale."
Steve:
I suspect that there is an important distinction between "being dominated
by" a particular type of pattern and actually being a particular type of
pattern that would be useful here. Also of issue would be the sorts of
things we try to classify as a pattern. For example, how do we think of a
law, a country, gravity, a family, church, and so on as a pattern of
experience instead of as a "thing"?
dmb says:
A distinction between being dominated and actually being a particular type
of pattern? As I tried to explain, it think the MOQ's basic structure simply
does not allow for the possibility of such a monolithic creature, except at
the very first level. Biological creatures MUST have at least two levels.
Normal humans, at least three and one dominated by intellectual levels has
ALL FOUR by definition. So the distinction you ask for is a distinction
between the ONLY possiblity and an IMPOSSIBILIY.
Sorry about all the shouting, but it seems you've been having trouble
hearing me. :-)
Thanks.
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