From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Jul 29 2004 - 12:46:09 BST
Hi Johnny, Paul
P:
> >All human beings have "achieved" intellectual level. Pirsig says the
> >intellectual level is the same as mind.
J:
> 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?
P:
Societies don't have minds. Individual humans have minds. Paul's
explanation of the relationship between society and minds is excellent.
P:
> >Surely you can see a difference between initiating physical force
> >(biological) and defending against it (social and intellectual).
J:
> 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.
P:
I don't care what their motives are. Their acts--killing innocent people--
are biological. Killing killers is what the social level does, doctors
against germs, soldiers against terrorists.
J:
> > > The fourth level cannot be called the individual level, because the
> >SECOND
> > > level is the individual level.
P:
> >Pirsig calls the second level biological. What's individual about it?
J:
> 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.)
P:
There are individual electrons at the inorganic level, too. But I'm
talking about human beings that make up the social and intellectual
levels. Cats need not apply.
J:
> > > When the individuals interact, you get
> > > third level patterns, when third level patterns interact, you get
> > > fourth level patterns.
P:
> >How do you define "fourth level patterns?"
J:
> 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)
P:
Sorry, I don't get it. Where does the mind of a human being come in?
J:
> > > Sure, they
> > > are propogated by consciousnesses, but so are patterns of every level.
P:
> >Huh?
J:
> 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.
P:
You're describing the dualism of subject-object, claiming there can be no
object without a subject and vice versa. In the MOQ, consciousness,
patterns, subjects, objects and all such divisions and labels are
secondary to experience or Quality. Anyway, do you really believe your
existence depends on someone (a consciousness) observing you?
Platt
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