From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Sat Apr 17 2004 - 17:47:16 BST
Hi Mark,
Hoom. Let's stick with this analogy of the symphony orchestra, because I think it's a good one.
> Mark 17-4-04: Sam, this is based on a fundamental mistake of yours regarding
> the MoQ. Levels ARE patterns. A level is a static repertoire of patterns of
> value.
I don't think levels are patterns; they are abstracted descriptions of common features of patterns.
Thus the inorganic level is a class of patterns that share the attribute of inorganic. Which I think
is what you're saying with that last sentence above, although it seems to contradict your assertion
that 'levels are patterns'. A rock is a pattern of value at the inorganic level. The inorganic
level - if it is a pattern at all - is an intellectual pattern of value. Isn't that what you're
saying in your other post?
> Let us use a simple analogy: The Symphony Orchestra.
> The Symphony Orchestra has a Woodwind section, a String section, a Percussion
> section, and a Brass section. Let us assume these sections correspond to the
> four levels of the MoQ?
> Any particular instrument must be tuned; it must be in a best tension with
> itself; it must 'be' well. Just as one instrument may 'be' well does not make it
> a new instrument does it? No. To be in tune is a good instrument.
> And so with ensemble paying - Eudaimonia is the Orchestra playing as a whole.
> Good Ensemble playing is not a new Orchestra, it is an Orchestra playing
> well.
> You make a simple mistake, but one which colours your whole description of
> Eudaimonia.
Well, that's not how I envisage eudaimonia. I see it as precisely analagous to one section of the
orchestra, NOT the ensemble playing in harmony. Although, to pursue it further, it may be more like
a lead violinist or soloist in the middle of a symphony, ie it is that which 'orchestrates' the
remainder (in the way that the higher levels dominate the lower).
> Mark 17-4-04: The term Character here is, in the analogy of the Symphony
> Orchestra, Ensemble playing. It is not the Woodwind, String, Percussion or Brass
> section.
No. That is not what I am saying at all. I am saying that character (ie the eudaimonic pattern of
value existing in a particular person) is equivalent to a section of the orchestra. Structurally
eudaimonia is exactly equivalent to Pirsig's intellect, in my conception of the MoQ.
> You confuse what the Orchestra IS with what the Orchestra is DOING.
> What the Orchestra is, is four sections; each section has instruments; each
> instrument is tuned, that is to say, each instrument is at its best.
> Just as a best tuned instrument is not a 'new' instrument, so a best
> Orchestra is not a 'New' Orchestra.
I don't think you've understood my essay. I have wondered why you're disagreeing with me so much,
given what you say in your Edge of Chaos essay. Your arguing with a fiction of your own creation,
not with my proposal.
> Mark 17-4-04: Now that your mistake has been identified and understood, we
> can see where you have gone astray: What Intellect does may be valued as either
> better or worse. Better Intellectual activity is not 'New' Intellectual
> activity, it is Intellectual activity being well, rather as a violin may be tuned
> poorly or tuned well. And the same may be said for each level in its turn.
> In the Ensemble playing of the Orchestra, the whole may play poorly or well,
> and playing well does not constitute a 'new' Orchestra.
> There is no Eudaimon level in the MoQ - However, there is Coherence in and
> across patterns of value, and it is the nature of Coherence - ensemble playing -
> which may be appreciated aesthetically as a life lived well.
Eudaimonia in my conception is not the equivalent of coherence in yours. I see them harmonising
quite naturally. I think if you grasped what my essay is about you might agree.
Sam
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