From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Jun 18 2004 - 19:48:46 BST
hi gav,
>yes i think that is a good way of putting it. looking
>at it that way the social pattern of, taking your
>example, the impulse to wave to your neighbour, once
>related to the social pattern of the self or subject
>becomes an intellectual pattern. ie we are conscious
>of it
Yeah, I see what you are saying, and that fits. If conscious thought is
put into repeating social patterns the thought is usually to relate that
pattern to some other pattern. Like thinking "I'd better wave to Bob, or he
will think I'm mad at him" relates the pattern of waving to the pattern of
friendship, and if that thought happens most of the time, then it is a
pattern of the fourth level.
I don't think people just think "wave to Bob" as a stand-alone thought. If
they think about it, it is to relate it to something else, not to do it. I
think we agree about that. So that would make the thought about how it
relates an intellectual pattern - but the social pattern of waving to people
you know remains social and isn't disturbed. I agree that social patterns
do not require any reflective, self-conscious thought for them to be
repeated, they are internalized into the will and are followed without being
aware of any choice or intention.
If a pattern predicts the way individual second level patterns will
interact, it is third level pattern, and if it describes the way third level
patterns interact, it is fourth level. There is no direct connection
between second and fourth levels, so a 2nd level pattern such as a human
cannot propogate, by himself, any fourth level patterns just by being
self-conscious.
>i like your take johnny but i am unsure as to whether
>social patterns are exclusively human. anyone care to
>jump in?
Right, Pirsig suggested we only include human interactions in the third
level, but only to make it less confusing, not because there are not animal
social patterns. It's just that we are humans, so we care about our
patterns.
There is no doubt that ants and bees and dogs and cats have very developed
social levels, as they have very firm patterns to their interactions with
each other. Animals are very moral, they try to do what they should do
almost every time, they hardly ever say "screw that". (And then there are
inter-species patterns, when cats and dogs interact, they do so according to
moral patterns also - a dog should chase a cat up the tree) And if there
are patterns to how animal social level patterns interact, they would be
fourth level patterns. The dogs don't need to be consciously aware of them
for them to exist as patterns. I can't think of any cases where animal
social patterns interact with other social patterns in predictable ways, but
there might be some. (It would have to be predictable to be called a
pattern). So if there is anything predictable about what happens when dogs
tendency to follow the alpha dog interacts with their tendency to smell each
other (when the TENDENCIES interact, not the dogs themselves) that pattern
would be fourth level, and it would be moral for dog society to continue and
strengthen that pattern, no matter what it was.
Funny territory, and confusing. That's why Pirsig suggested we leave animal
social patterns out.
Johnny
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