From: Valence (valence10@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Jul 26 2003 - 02:05:43 BST
Hey Johnny and all,
J
> The only biological pattern between two people I can think of is
> reproduction, which is why I see a marriage as a single biological
pattern,
> a single flesh, as it were, and not two individuals. Otherwise
reproduction
> would be social, when it is clearly quite biological.
R
I agree that 'reproduction' is biological, but I think 'marriage' is social.
I see marriage as a social pattern partially directed at facilitating the
biological pattern of reproduction. But I don't think that biological end
makes the marriage itself biological. To use another example, getting food
is a biological pattern (all life forms do it in one way or another, just
like they all reproduce); 'Farming' is a social pattern directed at
facilitating the finding of food, but that biological end doesn't make
'farming' itself a biological pattern.
J
All other patterns
> that emerge from the relations between people would seem to me to be
social
> patterns. Can you give me an example of a usual pattern of how people
> interact that is not social?
R
As I said, I think the behavior has to be copied from another human to be
social. Examples are hard to come by these days since pretty much of all of
our behavior is dominated by social or intellectual patterns now. But
imagine two hypothetical human babies raised by wolves. They live their
lives running with the pack and behaving exactly as the wolves do; their
behavior being driven by the same biological patterns as the wolves'. When
the two of them interact, their behavior isn't any more "social" than the
wolves' behavior is.
J
I think Pirsig may have said murder is a
> biological pattern, but, first of all, murder is not the pattern but is
the
> name for the immoral inverse of the social pattern of not killing each
> other, and secondly, it's social.
R
I agree that murder is social. Maybe 'killing' is biological... animals
kill each other all the time. But 'murder' is defined by a designation of
law, which a social pattern.
J
Those "immoral inverses" of patterns
are
> not patterns themselves, for patterns are by definition moral patterns
> (agreed that they are "moral patterns" right?) so if we have a name for
> their inverse, it shouldn't be confused for a moral pattern itself (such
> confusion would lead eventually to the pattern's demise, as both it and
its
> inverse would be seen as moral).
R
I disagree with all this "immoral inverse" stuff. I think 'murder' is a low
quality social pattern (ie. it's a social behavior of the basest sort). Low
Quality because it upsets the stability of other social patterns if people
just go around killing each other.
> >R
> >That's why I like "built on social patterns". Because saying you need
"two
> >societies" sounds like you mean "two cultures".
J
> Well, I think most intellectual patterns did come from the culture being
> exposed to other culture's social patterns, but sometimes the "other
> culture" is just two different perceptions of one culture.
R
Well, I'm not sure if I agree with the first half of this, but I think the
second half is okay (although I still think the way you choose to express it
is needlessly confusing).
> >R
> >What it all has to do with is FREEDOM at the inception....
J
> Right, Rick, that's the MoQ standard answer and it is unifying. But it
> seems a little pandering and grandiose, like the definition of DQ, it's
> another compliment we pay something because it fits the definition. And
> isn't it contradicted by the whole notion of the upper level manipuating
the
> lower level? That is an ironic outcome if the lower level was yearning
for
> freedom and ends up being manipulated. What is it that is trying to
"escape
> from the static patterns"? Patterns, or the level itself, or what?
R
It's Quality. Quality creates the patterns as a 'vehicle' to ride towards
higher orders of complexity and betterness. Through the interactions of the
patterns at a given level, different kinds of patterns emerge (ie. inorganic
patterns of carbon become life), at first for the benefit of the lower level
itself. But once the higher order of patterns becomes stable enough to
constitute a better vehicle for Quality, it seizes the higher level and
'goes off on purposes of its own'. From the perspective of the lower level,
it seems that those purposes are the purposes of the higher level, but in
fact, they are the same purposes behind all levels... Providing Quality with
a vehicle to ride Dynamically forward.
> >R
> >Yes J, I go to the movies because I expect to have fun. But I don't have
> >fun because I expect to.
J
> I think you do. You are using a much narrower definition of "expect" than
I am.
R
No argument there.
J
Anything that happens, happens because, at the moment of it
happening,
> we expect it.
We may not have expected it 15 seconds prior, but our
> expectations change as our experiences change. Expectation doesn't come
> from us, it comes from outside us.
R
Expectations come from somewhere outside of us??? I don't think so.
'Expectations' are about projecting the past that only exists in our
memories into the future that only exists in our plans. They only exist in
the post-interpretational (;-) world of static patterns. The
pre-interpretational present is indifferent towards them.
> >I don't think it's always better to do what society (or anyone, or
> >anything) expects.
J
> Again, you have a narrow view of expectation.
R
On the contrary, you have a broad one ;-)
J
Patterns are
> expectations, they are the expectation of the pattern continuing. If they
> weren't expected to continue, they wouldn't be a pattern at all. They
> continue because they are expected to, because expectation being realized
is
> good.
R
This sounds greatly backwards to my ear. I don't think that patterns
'continue because they're expected to'. I think we expect them because they
have been continuous in our experience so far. But that doesn't mean that
they'll necessarily continue to be continuous.
> >I think your making too much over the etymology of a single term.
J
> I don't, but I am sorry if it gets tiresome.
R
Nah. Stand up for what you believe is best, it's your only chance at
becoming a vehicle for DQ :-)
J
> Wait, I catch you in a contradiction (unexpected=fun, but
> mouse-in-cereal=unexpected<>fun) and you say I'm being post-hoc?
R
No J. I didn't say that "unexpected=fun", I said that things that turn out
to be fun were often unexpected (I acknowledge that sometimes the expected
can be fun too). If you want to get technical, I'm saying that
"unexpectedness" is neither a necessary, nor sufficient condition for
something to be fun.
J
Haven't
> you ever expected to be surprised before?
That's what excitement is all
> about.
R
How can you be surprised by something you're expecting? Isn't that why
"surprise parties" are kept secret from the V.I.P.?
J
> I've talked about how expectations change as the future gets closer, and
how
> stronger expectations often override expectatons that turn out to have
been
> based on incomplete information. I realize when I say that that it
sounds
> like I'm squirming around, but isn't it true, don't expectatins change?
R
Yes, expectations change, but not always in advance. In fact, I would think
that usually we have to go through the new experience and then reflect upon
it before our expectations are really changed.
J
> Well, it shouldn't be hard to see {Q}as synonomous with morality, at least
> the half of the meaning that we use to mean 'what we are morally expected
to
> do'.
R
Static Quality, maybe.
J
I can see that it is hard to see how the 'probability' half might be
> hard to reconcile with morality, but that is because people today confuse
> morality with ethics.
R
I think you should consider (at least just consider) that it's you, and not
'people today', that has become confused. You're confusing yourself by
unnecessarily linking two equivocal meanings of the same term. But we've
been there before.
take care
rick
'Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed'
was the ninth beatitude. - Alexander Pope
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