[MD] The MOQ by the moqists Part 1.

[skutvik at online.no]

Mary, All.

19 June:

Bodvar before:
> > Where do I place the S/O distinction on the biological level?  I
> > think it's Mary and I haven't yet figured out her assertion. 

[Mary Replies] 
> Hindsight is a powerful tool.  Once the pattern was established that
> said life forms were going to be discrete functional units as opposed
> to something else (and, no, don't ask me what because I don't know),
> the die was cast and all else follows pretty much inevitably.  With
> life-as-discreteness as the starting point, you can see how, slowly,
> step by step, greater complexity accreted to this beginning in
> synergistic support of the whole.  As an aside, I think you really can
> make a good argument that life was destined for the "discreteness"
> model by virtue of the big bang, and you could say, at the risk of
> sounding like a clock-work universe Newtonian, that the big bang set
> in motion a logical chain of events that's lead to me writing to you
> today.  And if you think about it some more, you'll likely decide that
> whether you ascribe to the subject-object model or the
> pattern-of-values model since the end result is going to be pretty
> much the same.  

Er .. yes, 

> Anyway, back on the subject at hand, if there is value in being a
> discrete living entity, then it behooves you to have a brain to go
> with it that 1) recognizes your distinctness from all else, and 2)
> values that distinction; and this, "My dear, Scarlett", is the much
> maligned subject-object distinction in a nutshell.  Living creatures
> have all had one through time immemorial and it has nothing much to do
> with intellect, though it does make use of it.

But the biological realm is just enormous, it spans from microbes, 
plants to the mammal organism. Brain - even anything resembling a 
neural system - is far far down the line. When the immune system 
entered I don't know but only then a "self/not self" distinction occurred.
The social level may also be seen as having a immune system based 
on another distinction the "our cause/not our cause" but it has nothing  
to do with SOM  which is intellect's value of ourselves as detached 
observers of reality. The fact that this distinction is paradox-ridden and 
platypus-producing - as SOM - is a different matter    

> Which brings me to aside number two (sorry) where I wonder how our
> world would be different if resources had never (from the
> single-celled beginning onward) been limited?  What if the biological
> drive toward complexity existed but the constraints of limited
> resources did not?  Who would we be? What would our social level have
> been like if there was no need for competition?

An interesting question, as you know the inorganic evolution towards 
complexity ended with the heaviest elements - fused together in the 
interior of stars that "burns" until carbon (I believe) is reached, but in 
novas and supernovas all the heavier elements are made and in the 
same instant spread across the universe as "stardust" from which the 
planets formed, however not all planets are mineral ones. If the 
inorganic resources were limited life may form, but just reach a certain 
complexity and the Q-evolution never transcend biology. 

NB. I like your "drive toward complexity" phraseology which is more 
telling than - for instance - viewing bacteria as "low biological value", 
they are necessary phases of the biological complexity scheme. This 
bad/good within levels is most unfortunate in speaking about "high 
quality intellectual ideas" as in Truth a ..... etc. Truth IS the intellectual 
level itself in the sense of the distinction between objective truth and 
subjective opinion.       

> But geez, Mary, didn't anybody ever tell you how you're supposed to
> consider your audience when you write stuff?  "Gone With the Wind" was
> the ultimate chick-flick and when my wife/girlfriend/significant-other
> made me watch it I discovered much too late that the sum-bitch was 4
> hours long!  When am I supposed to take a leak or get another beer? 
> Missed half the Lakers game and there were no boobs and only ONE cuss
> word.  Was that some Hollywood idea of a joke?

Who is this speaking? Dad Ken?

> Ok, so that counts as aside number three and I almost took it out, but
> hey, don't tell me you didn't think it too. I'm just saying that if you
> make a sweep with your binoculars back over the billenia of biology you
> can see how subject object logic brought us all the way to Atlanta
> without a hitch.  But that's not the Intellectual Level.  It just has
> plenty to say about where it came from. 

You become a bit too colloquial here for my capacity,  but as said, 
postulating S/O's to the levels below/before intellect sort of dilutes the 
term to uselessness. 

> Look, the Intellectual Level is just the next logical step.  If the
> Social Level was man's response to the problem of competition for
> limited resources in the Biological world, 

The levels - all levels - came to be as a result of  DQ not standing the 
static values of the former level, but always resulting in a new static 
level. This is the Q "catechism" at least where there is no "man" 
except that the organism known as  Homo Sapiens becoming the 
biological "building block" of the social level. Maybe this is what you 
say, but we must watch out for the "besserwisser" Krimels of this 
world. ;-)      

> then the Intellectual is just man's response to the problems of
> oppressive beliefs imposed in the Social one.  The Intellectual Level
> took the "metaphysical sock" of Social Level restrictions and turned it
> inside out and used the whole Social Level concept of belief systems
> against itself.  

Agree completely, however the "problems of ...etc" weren't obvious 
from inside the social level, there must be a dynamic something that 
exploited the Greek thinkers to escape the social strictures. The lower 
level looks upon efforts to escape it as undermining values as such. I 
maintain that the Islamist's hatred of Western value is a re-enactment 
of the social/intellectual struggle. They see no problems with 
despotism if only the despot is a devout Muslim.     

> The Intellectual Level became separated from the Social at the point
> where it took the Biological/Social assumption of discreteness and
> proclaimed it to be all there is.  

Here I object Mary. The socio/bio - or the human/animal difference 
(the levels know no levels) has been from time immemorial without 
leading to any intellectual development, and as SOM's (intellect's) 
emergence is describe in ZAMM there are no references to any such 
"s/o" it was the search for principles that transcends the Mythic 
principles- Then the master-principle TRUTH (eventually 'objectivity') 
that had "what appears as true" (eventual 'subjectivity') as its 
counterpoint and here the true 4th level's S/O  was born.       

> it was the new metaphysical twist that said the subject-object world we
> perceive really IS all there is and it is good - and not just good, but
> the only good. 

Again agreement, only a small "objections" it was really the TRUE 
(what became objective) which was good, the negative deceptive 
(what became subjective) was heaped on the past as superstition and 
ignorance ... believing in gods and an alive nature Bah!!!. But as we 
know the Sophist claimed that everything was "man-made" and as 
intellect evolved and the past was throughly subdued the sophists 
returned as idealism ... OK can't go through the whole history.

> And if any group before had ever said, "no it's not"
> (which Pirsig says there were and they did), then they were proclaimed
> wrong by this new Intellectual "freedom" which shifted the world under
> our feet and declared boldly otherwise

UNCONDITIONAL AGREEMENT!!!

End of part one. 

Bodvar
























> Lest you get the wrong idea, I'm not saying anything about my own
> value judgments here, I'm just pointing out that at the time, the
> advent of the Intellectual Level had to have been a refreshing relief
> for all those closet religious doubters who were daily persecuted, the
> early scientists who wanted to learn how things "really" worked as
> opposed to how God said they worked, and all those oppressed by the
> tyranny of inherited rather than earned privilege, caste, or rank. 
> The Intellectual Level sought to erase the inherent fallacies of the
> Social, and it worked pretty well.  For the first time it gave us a
> metaphysical basis from which to combat the insidious malaise of
> Social celebrity, unfairness, illogical "magical" thinking and all
> sorts of other Social stuff like that all in one fell swoop.
> 
> But it had its downside.  If you are daily suffering under the yoke of
> social repression that prevents you from expressing freedom of thought
> or freedom of action, or says that your social status is determined by
> some arbitrary decision made by people who are arbitrarily powerful,
> then the tenants of the Intellectual Level are a godsend.  You now
> have a coherent belief system upon which to base opposing arguments. 
> But this belief system proved to be an incomplete solution and turned
> out to result in a new and different mental prison all its own. I
> shall explain.
> 
> If you no longer believe that God has moral authority then that
> authority falls to man.  Maybe that's a good thing, but if it defaults
> to man, then moral authority is just whatever you say it is, and if
> you combine that with another Intellectual tenant that says we are all
> created equal, then there is no moral authority at all.  My morals are
> just as valid as yours.  
> 
> If you no longer believe the world was created by an omniscient
> creator for your benefit, and you fail to replace that belief with
> something else, the world _must_ be nothing more than the subjects and
> objects you see.  This approach has benefits.  You can do science and
> expect predictable, non-arbitrary results, but it also means you've
> raised the value of the objective world to the equivalent of 'the
> good'.  If there is nothing else, yet you are aware of a sense of
> 'betterness', then 'the good' must be a quality that inheres in the
> object.  The object has quality.  Quality does not have the object,
> and as we all know, it's all down-hill from there. 
> 
> Both the Social and the Intellectual Level, then, can be seen as
> differing metaphysical belief systems, differing 'patterns of value',
> and I would submit that beginning with the Social Level, differing
> metaphysical world-views of this sort were and will continue to be the
> engine driving the formation of themselves and any new levels which
> may be to come.
> 
> That Bo insists the MoQ, while 'of' or spawned by Intellectual Values
> is not one itself, is because he is following Pirsig's model.  It says
> this.  A new level germinates within its parent, but as it matures it
> can be seen in hindsight to come into conflict with the values of its
> parent; and when it does, and when it has achieved sufficient static
> latching to persist, it can be seen to constitute its own separate set
> of patterns of value.  As Pirsig says, these are always in conflict
> with the values of the parent, seek to oppose and dominate it, yet
> clearly depend upon it for existence.  In this context, The MoQ can
> clearly be seen as such in its relationship with the Intellectual.
> 
> Best,
> Mary
> 
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org/md/archives.html
> 
>