[MD] Food for Thought

[david buchanan]

Arlo said:
To restate, I believe (social pattern) in the Law of Gravity (intellectual 
pattern). ...The "idea of god", then, is to me a low-quality intellectual 
pattern, for the reasons I've been working through with Craig, but I can't 
say that the "idea of god" is a social pattern, while other ideas are 
intellectual. You see? This is my problem with some of the terminology 
surrounding the S/I levels.

dmb says:
I've read all your posts in this thread and haven't seen any reference to 
the idea that the levels are to be distinquished by that principle of 
opposition. Its really the only idea I've put forward on the topic so far 
and yet it has been bypassed entirely. Its like everybody has rejected it, 
but without a word about as to why it has been rejected. Again, the idea is 
simply that biological values are about controlling and overcoming the 
forces of nature while the social level values are aimed at controlling and 
overcoming the forces of biology and the intellectual level is aimed at 
controlling and overcoming the forces of society. This principle of 
oppostion is framed in terms of evolutionary relationships, of course, and 
the basic idea here is that each level breaks free from the previous 
limitations and must in some sense oppose its parent level in order to 
achieve its own independence and to pursue a different kind of good, if you 
will. I think your problem with the S/I terminology could be sorted out 
using this principle. Instead of making belief social and the ideas so 
believed intellectual, I think its much, much better to examine beliefs and 
ideas in terms of their origins and purpose. Since these two top levels are 
both what we'd normally think of as "mental", I don't think its useful to 
sort things out in terms of ideas and beliefs. I mean, the question is how 
do we distinquish social level beliefs and ideas with intellectual level 
beliefs and ideas. And it seems that we can't really sort things out by the 
unqualified content because there are social level faith-based beliefs about 
God and there are philosophical assertions about God too. Whitehead and 
Falwell have different beliefs on that topic, for example. Pirsig and the 
Pope differ with respect to God and mysticism and picking up bar ladies, 
etc..

Ian said:
I think the "authority is a social concept" .... is going to prove a key 
point. ...I think the key thing will prove to be whether the control / 
freedoms of those belief systems are phsyical (action by authority) or 
mental (communication).

Arlo replied:
I think this is perhaps similar to what I've been saying in differentiating 
high and low quality intellectual ideas, rather than social and intellectual 
"ideas". That is, intellectual patterns that depend on social force are 
low-quality intellectual patterns, because they suffocate DQ on the social 
level.

dmb says:
This, it seems to me, is exactly the sort of confusion that is supposed to 
be cleared up by the MOQ's distinctions. As the story goes, soldiers and 
policemen have always played a role in controlling the biological forces and 
this sort of physical restraint is necessitated by the nature of the forces 
being controlled by them, which are forces that can't be "talked" into 
compliance. This is the kind of "authority" that issues from the barrel of a 
gun or the business end of a spear or whatever. But then, as history and 
cultural evolution procedes, the social level uses this same tatic to 
enforce the belief in certain dogmas and such. The social values that did a 
tremendous job of creating a moral structure in which the organism could 
thrive becomes the oppressor of intellect rather than the protector against 
savagery. The social level keeps on doing what it has always done and the 
confusion and horror we've witnessed in the last century or two is a result 
of the fact that this function is an advantage when its directed at thieves, 
murderers and rapists but it can't rightly be applied upward at the 
intellectual level. Social level values gave birth to the intellectual 
level, but sees it as a threat, not least of all because the flaw in it has 
led to a situation where it has taken sides with biology. Hedonism and 
reactionary poliitical movements and other anti-intellectual impulses are 
also a result of the confusion. The MOQ is suppose to sort this out by 
showing that there is a point and a purpose to social level beliefs, by 
showing that its "authority", its use of physical restraint is highly moral 
when directed at one thing and highly immoral when its directed at another. 
The word "authority" can refer to state sanctioned violence AND to those 
with expertise in certain kinds of knowledge, in the way that Hawking is 
considered an "authority" on physics, for example. I suppose the apparent 
interchangability of this term only displays our confused conventional 
wisdom on the topic. But I think its pretty clear that tradition and 
empirical evidence constitute two entirely different kinds of authority. 
Nobody ever enforced the law of gravity with a gun nor has anyone served 
time for violating it. The rules of evidence are not designed to control 
biological forces, but rather to put restraints on what can be asserted as 
true. The authority of the intellectual level has an entirely different 
basis. Not only CAN we be talked into compliance, its the only proper way to 
deal with beliefs and ideas.

Ian said:
In the later case, an "authority" on a subject can make all the 
pronouncements he likes, but it is intellectual if I am physically allowed 
to ignore him and follow my own thoughts. THIS IS THE KEY. It is social if 
society's arrangements for governance allow him to "impose" that authority.

dmb says:
I guess we can imagine a situation where somebody decides that everyone 
should believe that E=mc2 and is willing to use physical force to achieve 
compliance, but that would be crazy and it wouldn't transform Einstein's 
equation into a social level belief. I mean, it does seem this distinction 
is key, but you're putting the key in upside down or something. Adding to 
what I've been saying about the differences in purpose and in kinds of 
authority, it seems that evidence has a certain "force" even if its not 
physical. Empirical data can't actually twist one's arm, but failure to 
comply will keep a person out of the journals and could, rightly I think, 
wreck one's intellectual credibility. Its moral to force compliance in that 
way on that level while the use of imprisionment would be wildly 
inappropriate. Obviously, as Pirsig points out, social level values are the 
middle term. Its relationship with biology is completely different from its 
relationship with the intellect.

Arlo said:
Well, I agree with you in part. I think again its a distinction between high 
and low quality intellectual patterns, not social and intellectual patterns. 
So I'd say the "idea of god" is a low quality intellectual pattern precisely 
because it depends on a huge amount fo social force and power to promulgate 
itself.

dmb says:
Again, I'd argue that there are beliefs based on tradition and faith and 
then there are intelllectual assertions. There are low quality intellectual 
concepts about God and there are traditional beliefs that have no 
intellectual merit at all. There is the kind of belief in God that simply 
refuses to subject itself to the rules of evidence, the kind that rejects 
the thought of Darwin, Marx and Freud as a bunch of Satanic lies. But notice 
that traditional theism is all about the rules of morality, most especially 
the kind we'd call the prohibitions against vice. Notice how this level of 
belief is about conforming to certain kinds of behaviour and the beliefs are 
essentially designed to give the ultimate sanction, to provide a cosmic 
level of authority, as if God himself were most interested in who sleeps 
with who above all else. This is not an "idea", per se. As an idea, it 
totally indefensible. Its simply an expression of the rigidity of the 
prohibititons so sanctioned. Thou shalt not commit adultry, not because it 
would deeply wound the spouse or risk the unity of the family or otherwise 
do great harm, but becasue the creator of the universe said so and you'll be 
tortured in hell forever if you don't. That is not an idea so much as a 
sentiment, an expression of what's good and bad in the way of basic social 
institutions like the family. In this way, social hierarchies, structures, 
its myths and heroes all reinforce each other in the task of controlling the 
appetites of the organism. The family structure, for example, doesn't exist 
to prevent sex but to control it. The king has the biggest chunk of land and 
the largest herds just like Dad gets the big piece of chicken at dinner time 
even though neither hunts for himself. I mean, the basic needs of the 
creature are all molified and re-channeled by social structures.

This is another part of the problem with intellect. It has achieved 
independence from this level and is supposed to be going off on a purpose of 
its own. But the failure to see this has led to a situation where the 
intellect, through technology, has merely joined the social level's task. 
The intellect is NOT supposed to be used just to find food or protect us 
from danger. That's what makes it so empty and hollow. Now we just have a 
lot of overprocessed, cheap, nasty food that isn't even healthy. Now we have 
enough "protection" to destroy the planet many times over. Its the ultimate 
in rational and efficient crappiness.

I guess I'm trying to make a case that this distinction is very much worth 
making. It is designed to untangle all kinds of confusion. I think the LAST 
thing that its supposed to do is equalize science and religion. The purpose 
of criticizing SOM is not the same as criticizing theism. Its not because 
"god" and "substance" are both mythical. Its not because they both rest on 
assumptions. And its worth pointing out that almost every Western theist 
alive today is operating with the assumptions of SOM and so are the secular 
scientific materialists. The theists are simply guilty of something else on 
top of sharing those assumptions with their faithless counterparts.

Nuff fer now,
dmb

"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."

"I am a pious man and believe that whoever fights bravely in defense of the 
natural laws framed by God and never capitulates will never be deserted by 
the lawgiver."

Quotes from Hitler in 1941 and 1944, respectively.

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