[MD] Delivery Status Notification (Failure)

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

>From: "ARLO J BENSINGER JR" <ajb102 at psu.edu>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>Subject: Re: [MD] Food for Thought
>Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 09:53:32 -0500
>
>Ian, Dan, DMB, Dave M, anyone else...
>
>Regarding demarking the division between "social" and "intellectual" 
>levels, I
>too must confess some haziness. It is perhaps, of all aspects of the MOQ, 
>the
>one that is most troublesome to me personally. So let me play devil's 
>advocate,
>think outloud, and toss out some informal and unstructured musings.
>
>Before I start, however, I hope we can dispell the "social-collective 
>versus
>intellectual-individual" stuff. Its evident to me that Pirsig's MOQ 
>consists of
>"individuals" on every layer, and it from the "collective activity" of 
>these
>individuals that individuals on the next higher level are able to emerge. 
>From
>individual inorganic patterns working collectively are individual 
>biological
>patterns able to emerge. Then, when these individual biological patterns 
>behave
>collectively, individual social patterns emerge. Etc.

Hi Arlo

Agree.

>
>So... I have, for the most part, adopted the following distinction. Social
>patterns are patterns of human activity, intellectual patterns are patterns 
>of
>human thought. (Note, I disagree with the restriction of these levels to
>humans, but will save that for later). Thus, driving around a racetrack or
>forming a family unit are "social patterns", the law of gravity and free 
>speech
>are "intellectual patterns".

Can't they each be both? Patterns of value aren't "out there" like
objects, separate and apart. They are both continuous and distinct.

>
>But this is not without its pitfalls. For example, we consider the "belief 
>in
>god" to be a social pattern, but the "belief in physics" to be an 
>intellectual
>pattern.

Any belief would seem a manipulation of symbolic thought, an
intellectual pattern of value.

>
>Now, I could say that it is "from where" a belief originates that 
>differentiates
>its placement. Thus, a belief informed by "authority" is a social pattern. 
>A
>belief informed by "science" is intellectual. But then I'd have to conclude
>that my belief in astrophysics is social, because it rests on authority.
>
>Is it "falsifiability"? Are intellectual patterns ones that can be 
>falsified?

Hmmm. That's an interesting observation. Perhaps the only way to
find out is to put the idea to the falsification test.

>But how do I falsify "free speech"?

If a person takes falsification to mean the act of disproving a
theory, then it seems that falsification only works if there's
something better to to take a theory's place. Since free speech is
one of the guarantees given to the people of the US by the
Constitution, it appears that the Amendments to the Constitution are
based on falsification. Ipso facto, to falsify free speech would
require that the people of the US collectively decide via the voting
process that there is something better and thereby pass an Amendment
to the Constitution declaring it to be so. Would you agree?

>
>I could, perhaps, go to the idea that intellectual patterns are "above" or
>"outside" cultural forces, but (as Pirsig quotes) "we are suspended in
>language". In ZMM, Pirsig describes the Indian ghosts as being as "real" a
>pattern to them as the law of gravity is to us.

The MOQ says that cultural patterns are both social and intellectual
patterns of value.

>
>The option I generally side with is this. One would be to excise "believing 
>in"
>from the pattern description. "Believing" as a "human activity" is always a
>social pattern. The object of belief, the thought, is always an 
>intellectual
>pattern.
Object of belief sounds suspiciously like Case's (Kant's) TITs.
sure, they may feel good, and they may be fun to play around with,
but they are in fact objects of a duality. Belief is an idea. A
thought.

>In this way BOTH "god" and "law of gravity" are intellectual patterns,
>but vary in their Quality. God is a low-quality intellectual pattern 
>because it
>stifles DQ.

The religions that've built up around the concept of god, sure.

>Science is a high-quality intellectual pattern because it preserves
>(in much the same way as the "free market") an open door to DQ.

How?

>"God" is the
>socialist market of Eastern Europe. "Science" is the capitalist economy of 
>the
>West. (I like the analogy because, I feel, BOTH "science" and "capitalism" 
>can
>be similarly criticized as adhereing to an SOMist paradigm).

Isn't capitalism based on value, while science is value free?

>
>So that brings me back to "activity" and "thought", but takes me somewhat 
>away
>from the MOQs conventional langauge. Here the "battle" between religion and
>science is not a battle of social versus intellect, but of two social
>institutions (the church and the Academy) fighting for the dominance of
>intellectual patterns (the idea of God versus the idea of science), and 
>what
>the MOQ does is illuminate which of these intellectual patterns is of 
>higher
>Quality (science, because of its openness to DQ, correlation with 
>experience,
>etc.). In addition, the MOQ can criticize science for not being "as high
>Quality as it could be" because of its neglect of "morals".
>
>Regarding vegetarianism, hunger is a biological pattern, how we organize 
>our
>farms, distribute our food and the like are "social patterns". This is 
>informed
>by intellectual patterns. Vegetarianism is a higher Quality intellectual
>pattern than ambivorism (or carnivorism) because it recognizes that a cow 
>is a
>higher life form than an ear of corn (and I'd add that the cow also 
>partakes of
>social patterns, albeit ones of minimal complexity, while an ear of corn 
>does
>not. It is in this sense that I'd personally differentiate the eating of a 
>cow
>versus a dolphin Both are biologically complex, but the social (and
>intellectual) patterns engaged by the dolphin (although primative by human
>standards) are of greater complexity than the cow.)

How do genetically modified (GM) crops fit into the MOQ equation?

Thank you for your comments

Dan