[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Gene M]

>
> [Platt]
>
You mean probably nobody's right, eh? And probably nobody's wrong. And
> probably there aren't any absolute truths. And probably there are some.
> Because you've ruled out any absolute statements, you probably should
> attach "probably" to anything you want to assert as true, just so your
> reader knows you're not sure.
>
> But in my heart know I'm right about a lot of things, even if I
> probably can't prove it to your satisfaction. :-)


We all think we're right, that's why we argue so strenuously for our ideas.
One should mentally append "probably" to everything I say. It's just
inconvenient to do it physically. I pretty much assume everything I know is
provisional, but it's easier to talk as if you believed what you said.

Here, let's try a new tact on this whole "individual vs. collective" debate.
Clearly there are individuals and there are collectives. Whether these are
actual differences or we simply make that difference in our minds, is of no
importance to the conversation at the moment. Good question for later
though! First I wanna get through this Individual as Intellectual Quality
and Collective as Social Qualty. Since that's really the only idea I have a
problem with.

What if I were to claim that Every level has individuals and collectives. A
single carbon molecule, and DNA. One, and Many. Biologically, a cell and a
raccoon. Does the cell try and destroy the raccoon? No. A virus might. So
let's say the Virus is an Individual biologically, and it is attempting to
destroy the collective of the Raccoon. Is it moral? That's the best analogy
I can come up with to the social level. Here, a single Human, and their
Culture are the individual and collective, no? So is it moral for one man to
try and destroy his culture? It's like a virus attacking the man. And on the
intellectual level, a single idea would be the individual, and a complex web
of ideas, such as physics let's say, would be the collective. So that one
idea could try and destroy the collective. However if the collective is
resilient it'll only Alter it.

What I'm trying to say is that individual human beings Only have importance
as such on the social level. Me vs. Everyone, is not Intellectual Quality
vs. Social Quality. It's Social Quality vs. Social Quality. It's part of the
natural cycle of a society. The Brujo story has nothing to do with Intellect
vs. Social, it's about Dynamic vs. Static. Purely on the Social Level. The
misfits and outcasts in any society are the most likely to perceive DQ and
lead the society towards it, because they're outside it slightly. This story
never even touches on Intellectual Quality at all.

The only thing an idea can destroy, is other ideas. Sure a person had that
idea, but most ideas don't pick up force until that person has given it away
to his followers. A single idea can only destroy a larger idea, if it
carries social backing behind it. Intellectual patterns of value, shared by
a social collective, are the most likely way to change anything. A single
man, fighting the system, Can accomplish things, but never on his own. Not
anymore, I'd say.

Do you see what I'm saying?

-Gene