[MD] Distinguishing Levels

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Gene, Matt, All
Gene wrote:

"Society is not completely dependant on language for transmission of
information actually. Things like Celebrity and Money play a huge role in
Society as a whole. I think of Language as more a bridge between
Intellectual and Social levels. It allows them to interact in a very close
way, which probably causes some of the confusion between them."

Steve:

Celebrity and money are indeed key in understanding the difference bewteen social and intellectual patterns:

The following quotes from Ch 20 of Lila support Gene's view:

"This celebrity is Dynamic Quality within a static social
level of evolution.  It looks and feels like pure Dynamic Quality for a
while, but it isn't.  Sexual desire is the Dynamic Quality that primitive
biological patterns once used to organize themselves.  Celebrity is the
Dynamic Quality that primitive social patterns once used to organize
themselves.  That gives celebrity a new importance."

"It becomes an organizing force of
the whole social level of evolution.  Without this celebrity force,
advanced complex human societies might be impossible.  Even simple ones."


"Celebrity was the culture force.  That was it.  It seemed like it, anyway.
It was crazy.  People going over Niagara Falls in a barrel and killing
themselves just for the celebrity of it.  Assassins murdering for it.
Maybe the real reason nations declared war was to increase their celebrity
status.  You could organize an anthropology around it."


"Money and celebrity are fame and fortune, traditionally paired, as twin
forces in the Dynamic generation of social value.  Both fame and fortune
are huge Dynamic parameters that give society its shape and meaning." 


Gene said:
" However it
seems clear that Social patterns aren't Dependent on language, at this point
I think a society could be built that wouldn't even require it."



Steve:
Certainly primative societies evolved before language. It is celebrity and money that give society it's shape and meaning not language.

I think Gene is on the right track in thinking of language as a bridge between the social and intellectual levels.

If you accept Pirisig's definition of intellect as the manipulation of abstract symbols that stand for patterns of experience then using language is intellectual activity. But what about the symbols that are manipulated, in other words, "words"? My understanding of the MOQ is that they are social patterns.

Here I think it is very helpful to identify social patterns as those being maintained through unconscious copying of behavior. Certainly language is learned in this way. My baby daughter is just learning to speak. She learns words by copying without knowing what she is doing--it just seems to have high quality for her to do so. Some day she will be able to manipulate those words to form intellectual patterns.

So in my book, languages are social patterns. That's why different societies have different languages. But thoughts as manipulations of the parts of language are intellectual and to a degree independent of the social level--that's why we can translate thoughts into other languages.

Regards,
Steve




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