From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Apr 18 2004 - 14:23:30 BST
Hi Steve Peterson,
Steve said:
> > > I think that the misunderstanding that suggests eudamonia level for Sam
> > > and individual level for Platt is conceiving of the levels as types of
> > > people rather than types of patterns of value.
>
> Platt said:
> > For myself, besides the arguments Sam presents, it's a question of
> > dominance. Only individuals create intellectual patterns. Most of us
> > agree that those patterns existed and still exist at the social level.
>
> Not sure I understand you. Are you saying that individuals existed and
> still exist at the social level?
Yes. Keep in mind when I say 'individuals' I'm referring to human beings.
>If so, I think there is an LC quote
> supporting that that says that people are social patterns, though I think
> elsewhere he also describes people as forests of static patterns of all
> types which makes mores sense to me.
>
> I can also agree that it is worth talking about dominance, but using the
> language of someone "being on" a particular level confuses the matter when
> what you mean by it is to be dominated by a particular level.
A Muslim fundamentalist is dominated by social patterns and is thus on the
social level. If she engages in terrorism, she drops down to the
biological level. I think being 'dominated by' and 'being on' amounts to
the same thing.
. When you say
> that someone is on the intellectual level, it sounds like you are saying
> that the person literally *is* an intellectual pattern rather than saying
> she is dominated by intellectual patterns.
If that what it sounds like, I haven't been clear. I hope what I wrote
above helps to clarify.
> I can see that it would make
> more sense to say that the person literally *is* an individual, but the
> shift in names from intellectual to individual only seems necessary bcause
> you are conflating "being on" a level with being dominated by a type of
> pattern of value. As I understand the MOQ, the only things that are
> literally on the intellectual level are thoughts.
I don't see how you can disembody thoughts. Thoughts emanate from minds of
individuals.
> Perhaps we can agree that an autonomous individual is one who is dominated
> by intellectual patterns?
Rather perhaps we can agree that the individual level is dominated, by
individuals who are dominated by intellectual patterns and thus often in
conflict with individuals dominated by social patterns. Ex: scientists vs.
voodoo priests.
> >But when the
> > individuals who created those patterns saw that the social level was a
> > hindrance to their free expression, they gathered sufficient power to
> > create a new level that freed them from the stifling confines of social
> > level patterns, you know, freedom of religion, of speech, trial by jury,
> > etc.
>
> I would say that people holding those ideas gained sufficient control of
> social institutions to institutionalize those freedoms as these particular
> ideas became widely perceived to be good by way of belief. There is no
> static level above that of ideas (individual level) that contains patterns
> of valuation of ideas. The set of valuations of ideas is the intellectual
> level itself. no new level is required to free intellectual patterns. It is
> a matter of people creating social structure that encourage the evolution
> of intellectual patterns.
Sorry, I don't follow you.
> > > Eudamonia and individual describe people, whereas Pirsig's
> > > intellectual
> > > level is a collection of patterns of value of a particluar type.
> >
> > I don't see how you can divorce people from intellectual patterns.
> >
>
> This question disolves when you stop thinking in terms of subjects and
> objects (thinkers and thoughts) in favor of patterns of value.
Precisely the problem. When you stop thinking of people and begin
labelling them in abstract terms, the mischief begins. I'm sure you would
rather be thought of as Steve Peterson, a unique and valuable individual,
rather than an cipher made up of four value levels like every other person
on earth. Once you begin to think of people in the abstract like that, you
have no qualms in coercing them to conform to some abstract plan 'for
their own good.'.
> A person is not a fourth level entity. A person is a pattern of patterns
> that does have a fourth level component since we think of one's thought
> patterns as part of his identity. We think of his social and biological
> patterns as part of his identity as well. (We don't bother thinking about
> one another's inorganic patterns since we all play by the same rules
> there.)
This description of me is what I find scary, for the reasons outlined
above.
> > >When you
> > > think of the levels as types of patterns where intellectual patterns
> > > are simply patterns of thinking, then there is no need to do any
> > > renaming.
> >
> > I don't see how you can divorce individuals from patterns of thinking.
>
> Consider the pattern of deductive logic. Must you think about some
> individual thinking deductively to think about deductive logic, or can you
> simply think about deductive logic? The fact that there would be no
> deductive logic without biological brains to manipulate socially
> constructed symbols standing for patterns of experience goes without
> saying.
Beware when someone says, "It goes without saying" which assumes a premise
without evidence. Remember, it took an individual, Aristotle, to invent
logic, just as it took an individual, Pirsig, to invent the MOQ.
>You may be conflating Pirsig's levels with Wilber's holons. The
> intellectual level does not contain the social level which does not contain
> the biological level, etc. Each is a specific type of pattern whose
> existence depends on the level below but is not contained by the level
> below and does not contain the level below. If that's what you mean by
> "divorced" then, yes, I think the levels are divorced.
The individual level contains the social level in so far as it uses the
language of the social level. Wilber's holons are another issue
altogether.
> > > I hope that the problems that
> > > each of you found with the term intellectual will lead you to
> > > reconsider how you have been thinking about what Pirsig means by level.
> > > As Ayn Rand would tell you, when you encounter a contradiction, check
> > > your assumptions.
> > > There are no contradictions.
> >
> > I see no contradictions in renaming the Intellectual Level the Individual
> > Level. It's simply a proposal for a change for the better in the MOQ,
> > something Pirsig encouraged.
> >
>
> The contradiction I'm talking about is whatever drove you to feel the need
> to fix Pirsig's work. I'm suggesting that you should consider that the
> problem may be the way you are thinking about the levels rather than an
> error that RMP made in naming them. I suspect he knew what he meant by
> intellectual. (He was even anoyed at the thought of someone else not
> knowing what he meant because he thought it was so obvious.) If he
> actually meant individual level, I'm sure he would have called it that.
This is the argument from authority--the master always knows best. Pirsig
knew what he meant by intellectual and figured it was so obvious that
everybody did. But it looks to me like he had a 'static filter' here that
blinded him to the fact that not everyone understood what he meant by
intellectual. He felt compelled to further explain it in the LC, and even
now there are some who disagree that explanation.
Regards,
Platt
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