[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Platt]
If you want to call that distinction a myth or an illusion, your argument is
with Pirsig, not me.  My distinction between the individual and  collective
levels are synonyms for Pirsig's distinction between the  intellectual and
society levels. 

[Arlo]
Big on distortion today, are we? Okay, again. Pirsig claims the intellect
invented a myth of independence from the social level. I agree with him on
this. This is paralleled in ZMM's mythos-over-logos segment when he claims the
"logos" bears a relation to the "mythos" as a tree to a shrub.

Second, it is your distinction between "individual and collective" that is an
illusion. Both the individual and the collective together, dialectally, form
the social level. The intellectual level, as Pirsig formulated it, The Law of
Gravity, Calculus, etc, emerges out of the social level. What you call
"synonyms", I call "political warping".

[Arlo previously]
The point is that "predictable behaviour" is another myth.

[Platt]
That's news to me, not to mention behavioral psychologists.  I can predict my
cat UTOE is not about to fly away like the birds he chases.

[Arlo]
It wouldn't be news to you if you read Pirsig. "Particles "prefer" to do what
they do. An individual particle is not absolutely committed to one predictable
behavior. What appears to be an absolute cause is just a very consistent
pattern of preferences."

[Arlo previously]
As can the pattern of a cell, or a cat (my condolensces on UTOE, by the way).
"Quality is the response of an organism to its environment". 

[Platt]
Do you have a source for that quote? (Incidentally, UTOE is very much  alive. I
just used him as an example of the absolute certainty of  death. Of course, if
you are a Christian . . . .  :-)

[Arlo]
The quote is ZMM, probably why you missed it. It precedes the amoeba segment.

"The easiest intellectual analogue of pure Quality that people in our
environment can understand is that 'Quality is the response of an organism to
its environment' (he used this example because his chief questioners seemed to
see things in terms of stimulus-response behavior theory)."

Following the amoeba section, Pirsig continues.

"In our highly complex organic state we advanced organisms respond to our
environment with an invention of many marvelous analogues. We invent earth and
heavens, trees, stones and oceans, gods, music, arts, language, philosophy,
engineering, civilization and science. We call these analogues reality. And
they are reality. We mesmerize our children in the name of truth into knowing
that they are reality. We throw anyone who does not accept these analogues into
an insane asylum. But that which causes us to invent the analogues is Quality.
Quality is the continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create
the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it."

Also, from Lila, of course, Pirsig writes, "A bacterium gets no choice in what
its progeny are going to be, but a queen bee gets to select from thousands of
drones. That selection is Dynamic."

Here, at least, Pirsig speaks of queen bees being able to respond to Dynamic
Quality.

Arlo