From: Valuemetaphysics@aol.com
Date: Wed Apr 14 2004 - 12:50:02 BST
PART. 1.b
More essay:
it is the wise
person that is most free and in touch with Quality, not the intellectual.
Mark 14-4-04: There are two descriptions of the wise man in the ethics: The
man of affairs, and the philosopher. The wise man of affairs always behaves
appropriately no matter what the circumstance; the wise philosopher is a hyper
intellectual/mystic who contemplates true reality.
The interesting thing about the man of affairs is that it could be said he is
perfect. This man never steps a foot out of line - he is physically beautiful
and strong, socially he is immaculate in his behaviour and standing, honoured
and respected, intellectually he knows what principles to apply in order to
train himself to become perfect, in all his business dealings he always plans
and executes brilliantly.
In our modern society, you would have to imagine this man to have the
ravishing good looks of a star of the big screen, combined with the military skill of
a renowned general, the political wisdom of a noble and erudite diplomat,
plus the intellect of Stephen Hawking. It's allot to ask isn't it? But then, we
can do what we like when dealing hypothetically can't we?
The philosopher, in contrast to the men of affairs, is happy to let the men
of affairs organise a society in which he, the philosopher, can forget about
all that man of affairs stuff and get on with contemplation.
So, when Sam glibly trots out, "it is the wise person that is most free and
in touch with Quality, not the intellectual" what is he saying?
Well, even by Aristotle's lights, both his wise men, the man of affairs and
the philosopher use intellect to do what they do. But here we have to bring in
Aristotle's notion of potential and actuality. Both men actuate their
potential intellects, but the man of affairs integrates his to living a full man of
affairs life, to the neglect of specialisation, (jack of all trades, master of
none)! while the philosopher fully actuates his intellect! Which one is better?
That is a debate that is going on and on.
But the thing is, the MoQ and my, The edge of chaos would agree with Sam and
suggest that Coherence is best. The problem is, Sam says the essence of
autonomy is the individual, whereas i would say it is Coherence of patterns in and
across levels. It is the intellectual patterns in tension with all other
patterns which generates Dynamic coherence which is then attributed to the
individual, and NOT the individual as a 'level' of the MoQ.
The difference is subtle, but absolutely important: Sam does not understand
that what he is saying is not a minor change to the MoQ, his changes are
founded on a complete misunderstanding of what the MoQ is saying.
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