From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Mon Sep 15 2003 - 12:17:07 BST
Bo
[Bo quoted Paul:]
> I don't think so. When you start to think in terms of patterns, there
> is nothing essential and unchanging outside of the pattern to which
> the pattern clings to. A biological pattern does not "leave home" and
> become a social pattern of value. A social pattern of values is
> created, and that's it.
[Bo:]
You have a tendency to seek refuge in some mysticism ...here about
"nothing essential and unchanging outside of the pattern to which the
pattern clings to".
[Paul:]
This has nothing to do with mysticism. In the MOQ, "patterns of value"
replace "things" as descriptions of experience and there is nothing
outside of experience.
[Bo:]
I admit that ".. going off ...etc" is awkward. The element carbon does
not "leave home" seen from the inorganic level, rather it was/is
ambiguous enough to become the vehicle for life. The biological
pattern "ambiguous" enough to become the vehicle for society? What
is your guess ...all of you?
[Paul:]
The biological human.
[Bo quoted Paul:]
> Paul:
> The levels are defined by the patterns, a level is the collection of
> patterns. So it is not that "a level" does something to a pattern,
> like usurping. I think it is more that DQ changes a pattern into a new
> pattern.
[Bo:]
Yes, it's DQ that does the usurping, we agree here
[Paul:]
Finally :-)
[Bo:]
> Paul:
> Carbon is a name given to an inorganic pattern of values. DNA is the
> name given to a biological pattern of values. They are completely
> discrete in the MOQ. As Pirsig says - a carbon atom does not possess
> or guide life.
Well it's Pirsig who uses the names, but regarding DNA I think the
carbon as a vehicle is explanation enough.
[Paul:]
Agreed.
[Bo quoted Paul:]
> Paul:
> Widely accepted, indeed. My question, though, is this - is it the
> wrong way to look at evolution to look for one pattern that exists in
> two levels? I think it is. I think the confusion may be because we
> have names for things which refer to a collection of patterns existing
> at different levels. Language being one of them. A human being is
> another.
[Bo:]
Again you take off into a nameless mysticism. Language is a very
good candidate.
[Paul:]
Again, I don't see what mysticism has to do with this. My point is that
I think language is something that is not adequately described in terms
of one MOQ level. I think learning is a social pattern which makes it
possible for such patterns as language to exist beyond the lifetime of
individuals. So in a sense, I can see that language, or communication at
the very least, must be partially described as a social pattern.
However, I think that language as we know and use it, i.e. heavily
symbolic and grammatically structured, is best described as an
intellectual pattern.
[Bo:]
It gave (social reality) the impression of a "name"
realm different from the real thing realm and thus triggered the
intellectual subject/object value jump.
[Paul:]
Well, I don't know what you can mean by "social reality". This relies on
your assumption that each level is a self contained reality; I don't see
it like that at all. I think the social level of patterns is about
relationships between humans such as hierarchy, status and authority
perpetuated by learning, ritual and customs and embodied in
institutions. I think this level necessarily exists alongside other
levels and Dynamic Quality as part of reality and did not historically
occupy a status of "reality itself".
[Bo quoted:]
> Paul:
> This is another assumption to pin down - improvement is between the
> levels - I can't see where you have got this from.
[Bo:]
Where from? For example. It is said that new particles first appear as
results from equations and are a big surprise to the theorists. We may
look on Phaedrus as one who fed all the latest ideas into his equation
and out came the Quality result. He was crestfallen as we know. No
comparison, but both the SOLAQI and the said "complication" idea
arrived as results from my own "equations". I would not have been so
obstinate if they weren't not so compelling.
[Paul:]
I didn't mean "where do ideas come from?" I meant "where in Pirsig's
writing did you get that assumption from?" The answer is - you didn't
get it from Pirsig, you made that assumption yourself.
Paul
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