[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Gene M]

Platt wrote:

> I assume you mean add "probably" to everything you say when you are
> talking about philosophical ideas. If it's raining outside do you think
> you need to add "probably" when you report, "It's raining outside? Or
> the "U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima?." Or  "My great, great
> grandfather is dead?"


 You can assume that if you want. I'm not certain if it's correct or not.
I'm a very uncertain person. I actually did mean it the more absurd way. All
of my statements should have probably in front of them. Including that one.
Probably. I'm really not sure if I am sure about anything.

The misfits and outcasts are individuals wouldn't you say? That's been
> my point all along. They are the catalysts for moral evolution, not the
> mob.


 They are. Let's make this clearer. I'm Not arguing that individuals and
collectives don't exist. I'm Not arguing that individuals aren't an
important agent of social change. I'm Not telling you that collectives are
the only thing that count. I AM telling you that individual Does Not equal
Intellectual. Many counter-culturalists are spurred only by biological
Quality, they're individuals. They don't fit in with the Crowd. They're not
Intellectual Quality though. Intellectual patterns of value may reside in
individuals, they may reside in collectives, maybe they float around, free
in space! The only point I want to make to you, and convince you of, is that
calling the intellectual level of the MOQ the "individual" level, is not
correct at all.

An individual human being is of absolutely no importance, other than
socially. That's essentially the function of society, make some individuals
more important than others so they can lead them to higher social Quality.
If you have the greatest idea that has ever existed, and you tell absolutely
no one, then the idea is of immense intellectual value, but of No social
value. Thus the individual is of no importance, and will never shape events
in the world. Intellectual patterns can only affect society, by working
through society. An individual who wants to change the world, has to make
himself Part of that world. That's part of the Brujo story. Sure he was an
outcast, but he stayed and integrated himself into his tribe, became part of
the collective, and led that collective to greater social Quality. It's a
social Quality story.

Calling Intellectual Quality individual, is selling it short.

All you are saying IMO is that no one person every painted a picture or
> designed a war memorial or came up with an original theory or saved a
> Zuni tribe from extinction.  Everything is done by committee. I don't
> buy it for a minute.
>

I don't see where you got Committee out of this. I'm not interested in
groups of people all acting in unison. That'd be nice, but it's not likely.
Every group has a leader, and every leader is part of his/her group.  An
individual can only effect social change by having followers. They need a
collective to carry their idea with them. All those examples are people who
came From the collective, were created by it, and Inside that collective
acted dynamically. The intellectual Quality is there, but it is removed from
the social. Distinct.

I don't know how better to explain it, but do you start to see where I'm
going with this?

Steve H wrote:

> In David Morey's Forum essay on Arthur Young, he used Light,
> Particles, Atoms, Molecules, Plants, Animals, and Man to represent the
> Inorganic and Biological levels.  It seems to me that the hierarchy
> progresses from individuals to collectives


I would say that from the perspective of the previous level the next one up
seems like a collective, but from It's level, it is a single entity, and
individual. So to a cell, an organism like me must appear a vast and varied
collective of other cells all working to keep each other alive, and this I
am, it's true. But to myself, I am a single entity, whole and individual.
Each level seems to be built of collectives from the previous level of
evolution.

Intellectual Quality has more potential than Social Quality.


 I would agree. I think that once the Intellectual Level really gets Away
from Society, it'll have much more freedom than society does. Ideas can be
anything, and do anything, and be About anything. The possibilities for them
are Endless. It's the same thing as saying a cell has more possibility than
carbon. Or that I have more possiblity than that cell. Everything seems to
be a move towards greater and great Dynamic Quality.

-Gene