[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Platt Holden]

> [Platt]
> Our minds are only united by a common language. Our intellectual
> patterns are as separate and distinct as a cat from an amoeba.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Intellectual patterns are not the property of you or me, any more than I
> am the property of my cells. Calculus does not belong to any
> "individual".

I take it you are against intellectual property and the copyright law.

> [Arlo previously]
> There are individuals on the intellectual level. Individual intellectual
> patterns include the Law of Gravity, Calculus, the MOQ and Quantum
> Physics.
 
Individual human beings with individual brains were instrumental in 
creating the Law of Gravity (Newton), Calculus (Leibniz), the MOQ 
(Pirsig) and Quantum Physics (Heisenberg, Schrodinger.) These and other 
individuals are the shining stars of the intellectual level without 
whom no significant intellectual patterns arise.  

> [Platt]
> Did you not get my saying HUMAN individuals, not individual intellectual
> patterns as you assert. To you intellectual patterns float around at the
> intellectual level, soulless and brainless, free of any connection to
> you or me or the man behind the tree. Ridiculous. You can't have
> thoughts without a human brain.
> 
> [Arlo]
> And you can't have a human brain without cells. And cells without atoms.
> And atoms without protons. That "intellectual patterns" depend on brains
> as hardware no more makes them a property of the brain, than the fact
> that the brain relies on cells makes the brain a property of cells. This
> is basic emergent stuff, Platt.

I'm not talking about properties. I'm talking about necessities. You 
can't have thoughts without a human brain. This is basic stuff, Arlo.

> [Arlo previously]
> So, inorganic particles are not ruled by "predictable behavior", but
> cats are. But people are not?
> 
> [Platt]
> All levels above the quantum, including cats and people, behave 
> predictably. Otherwise, no science and no static patterns, Just chaos.
> 
> [Arlo]
> I prefer Pirsig, there are "very consistent patterns of preferences"
> that make up what we call "static quality". By the way, I'm not sure
> what kind of cat you have, but mine is hardly an automaton of
> predictable behavior. She makes decisions, dynamically, based on "it's
> better here" every day. I'm sorry to hear UTOE behaves as a predictable
> robot.

Yes, predictably UTOE will wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, sleep 
til noon, have a snack, sleep to until supper, have supper, sit on my 
lap for awhile and then go to bed for the night. If your cat acts much 
differently than my cat, I'd be surprised. After all, what we call 
"cat" is simply a body of predictable bodily configuration and 
behaviors. 

> By the way, I notice here too you say that people behave
> predictably? How can that be if we can respond to DQ? I thought that
> "behaving predictably" was your argument for things being incapable of
> responding to DQ?
 
You forget that people consist of all patterns from inorganic up to 
intellectual. The inorganic and biological patterns of a human are 
completely predictable. Everyone gets hungry and thirsty. Every heart 
beats. Sooner or later everybody dies. Absolutely predictable. That's 
what "static quality" means, the predictable side of the front edge of 
experience. 

Platt