RE: MD the metaphysics of free-enterprise

From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Jul 28 2004 - 21:16:46 BST

  • Next message: Richard Loggins: "Re: MD Something broken"

    Hi Platt,

    >All human beings have "achieved" intellectual level. Pirsig says the
    >intellectual level is the same as mind.

    I wonder what he means by "mind"? Don't you think that the fourth level has
    to be somehow above and dependent on the third level? How is mind higher or
    dependent on society?

    >Surely you can see a difference between initiating physical force
    >(biological) and defending against it (social and intellectual).

    Not really, because history goes back so far. Everyone feels they are
    defending against the other guy. Bin Laden cites some date like 100 years
    ago as the start of the war, when some Sultanate was installed or deposed or
    something, but of course it goes back much further, maybe all the way to the
    beginning. And I should say that they aren't fighting in order to kill
    people, they are trying to fight off social and intellectual patterns that
    they feel are bad for Morality, that destroy love and quality.

    > > The fourth level cannot be called the individual level, because the
    >SECOND
    > > level is the individual level.
    >
    >Pirsig calls the second level biological. What's individual about it?

    The individuals. You and I are individual bio patterns. My cat is an
    individual cat. It is the expected interactions of individual bio patterns
    that form the third level. And it is individual instances of inorganic
    patterns which interact in expected ways to form the bio level. (But I
    didn't call the first level the "individual level" because we were talking
    about people. But every level has individual instances of patterns in the
    same way. Individual third level patterns are different societies,
    individual fourth level patterns are different ideas about society.)

    > > When the individuals interact, you get
    > > third level patterns, when third level patterns interact, you get fourth
    > > level patterns.
    >
    >How do you define "fourth level patterns?"

    Expectations ABOUT society that come about through the repeated interactions
    of social level patterns. (I reserve the right to refine that, but that
    gets the drift)

    > > Individuals do not achieve the fourth level, fourth level
    > > patterns are propogated by interacting third level patterns.
    >
    >Above you say "success must mean an individual achieving intellectual
    >patterns. Now you say individuals do not achieve intellectual patterns.

    I was saying that's what I thought you were saying, that individual success
    is people achieving the intellectual level. But I think now I was just not
    understanding.

    > > Sure, they
    > > are propogated by consciousnesses, but so are patterns of every level.
    >
    >Huh?

    The pattern of a rock, and the pattern of gravity, the pattern of big fish
    eatng little fish, are all propogated by consciousness, and also propogate
    consciousness. There can be no consciousness without a pattern for the
    consciousness to be conscious of, nor can there be a pattern without a
    consciousness conscious of it.

    Johnny

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