[MD] MD 4th level - The more autonomous level

[Michael Hamilton]

Hi Platt,

One quick question with regard to the parts of your exchange with Arlo
that I've quoted below:

How would you, as an individual, have come to the point of being able
to write posts to the MD, or even to form the thoughts expressed
through your posts to the MD, without access to the English language
(or any language)?

Regards,
Mike

On 12/21/05, Platt Holden <pholden at sc.rr.com> wrote:
> It's a fine day, Arlo:
>
> > [You wrote]
> > Whether it be collectives of communism or fascism, I've
> > witnessed the horrors engineered by both in the 20th century.
> >
> > [Arlo]
> > You're confusing the "collective consciousness" with specific political
> > regimes. The Russians and the Germans were no more, and no less, reliant on
> > the collective activity of man than Americans are.
>
> Since I don't believe there is such a thing as "collective consciousness"
> I'm not confused. Consciousness is only known by individuals, one person
> at a time. Likewise, there's no collective "mind."

<snip>

> > [Platt]
> > I've seen too much killing for the collective's sake. For me the
> > struggle between the individual vs. the collective is the struggle of you
> > and me against Pirsig's killer Giant.
> >
> > [Arlo]
> > Except that Pirsig places the "Giant" as a higher organism that individual,
> > biological man. "A higher organism (Giant) is feeding upon a lower one
> > (individual, biological man) and accomplishing more by doing so than the
> > lower organism can accomplish alone."
> >
> > But, I do agree that balance is required between freedom from degeneracy
> > (do we want to be cavemen again) and requisite static latching. We don't
> > "serve the public good" by blind obedience and servitude (that's the
> > mistake the Stalinists made), nor do we condemn "the public good" in favor
> > of "do whatever I want". In this sense, social patterns are not something
> > to be rebelled against per se, nor are they something to be uncritically
> > obedient to. To do either is both disingenuous and dangerous.
> >
> > But, again, I think we need to disentangle the idea of the "collective
> > consciousness" from "certain political static social patterns". The idea
> > that you could (or even want to) rebel against the Mythos, the collective
> > human consciousness from whose potential-enabling appropriation "Platt"
> > came into being (as something other than a biological agent) is absurd. To
> > do so would be to argue for being cavemen.
>
> Rather than "collective consciousness" I would say that I "came into
> being" in an environment consisting of various patterns ranging from the
> inorganic to the intellectual plus a dynamic moral element..

<snip>

> > [Platt]
> > That's why I support the "Great Man" theory of history. It says to every
> > child, "You too can be great." Isn't that the message you want to impart to
> > the next generation?
> >
> > [Arlo]
> > Unfortunately, that's not all it says. It says, "and you do it alone".
> > Which is just fundamentally untrue.
>
> And I say it's fundamentally true. No one can write a metaphysics for you,
> or even your posts to the MD. :-)
>
> Platt