[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Platt]
The individual level is distinct from the collective level as the intellectual
level is distinct from the social level as you and I are distinct from one
another.. 

[Arlo]
Only in your world, Platt. Not mine. You and I are distinct biological entities,
perhaps, but we our minds are united by the collective consciousness. We have
unique microgenetic experience, to be sure, but this is structured by the
mythos we have both internalized.

[Platt]
So there are no human individuals at the intellectual level? I call  that
"Pirsig warping."

[Arlo]
There are individuals on the intellectual level. Individual intellectual
patterns include the Law of Gravity, Calculus, the MOQ and Quantum Physics.

[Platt]
Quantum particles inhabit a different realm of being than you or I or UTOE, or
hadn't you noticed? Lots of thing go on in the quantum that have no
corresponding behavior in higher levels, like nonlocality. To take what 
happens in the quantum realm and apply it to biological and higher levels is
risky business at best.

[Arlo]
So, inorganic particles are not ruled by "predictable behavior", but cats are.
But people are not?

[Arlo previously]
"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)."

[Platt]
You know, of course, that when Pirsig wrote ZMM he had not split  Quality into
Dynamic and static. Static quality also provides a "continuing stimulus" on us.

[Arlo]
I thought it was Dan who said that Quality as used in the ZMM sense should refer
to Dynamic Quality. Can you provide a reference that refers it to static
quality?

[Arlo previously]
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.

[Platt]
If you take that literally, all choices, especially sexual ones, made by bugs on
up become responses to Dynamic Quality whereas below bugs there's no such
activity, like the poor amoeba who has no choice but shy away from acid.

[Arlo]
Why shouldn't we take him literally here? I see no contextual evidence that he
is speaking metaphorically or analogously. Do you?

And yes, I do think any response to "it's better here" is a response to Dynamic
Quality. Whether its a carbon atom preferring to be "here", or an amoeba
preferring to be "there", or a queen bee wanting to bang a particular "drone",
or Platt choosing to name his cat.

[Platt]
But, some have suggested jumping off a hot stove is a response to DQ. Is that a
choice? Not unless you have a strange definition of choice. I don't think
Pirsig intended to have us think of responses to DQ as being instinctive,
uncontrollable reactions like pissing, farting and jumping off hot stoves.

[Arlo]
That we are more complex organisms than bees, and can invent more complex
analogues, is not in question. That even the simplest of responses to "it's
better here" is Dynamic Quality is just the force of Quality at work.

First comes the Dynamic response to Quality, then the invention and utilization
of static patterns to latch the response.

[Platt]
If I'm wrong, I'm sorely disappointed. I always assumed from what Pirsig wrote
that responding to DQ  meant responding to the desire of the life force toward
betterness.

[Arlo]
Isn't that what the amoeba is doing? I wouldn't be disappointed, in fact, I
think it paints a much more wonderous view of "the world" than simple nothing
but static patterns inhabited by singular beings alone capable of repsonding to
Dynamic Quality (ie, perceiving "betterness").

[Platt]
If responding to DQ simply means reacting to what happens in static predictable
ways, like jumping off hot stoves, forget about it. It's a metaphysics of old
tea.

[Arlo]
Responding to DQ means sensing "it's better here". Why is that so threatening?
We have more complex responses to DQ (in the invention of more complicated
analogues, static patterns) than bees. Our "fondness for ourselves" can be
gained from examing not how we alone can experience DQ, but the level of
complexity to which we can statically latch that experience.

Arlo