[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Platt Holden]

> [Platt]
> Individual human beings with individual brains were instrumental in 
> creating the Law of Gravity...
> 
> [Arlo]
> Individual cells with individual nuclei were instrumental in creating
> your brain. So what?

When an individual cell has a thought, let me know.

> [Platt]
> These and other individuals are the shining stars of the intellectual
> level without whom no significant intellectual patterns arise.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Ah, I see. Back to the ol' absolute dichotomy. If I don't believe it was
> the individual in isolation, I must believe the individual has no role
> whatsoever. It's an inane dichotomy.

To you all dichotomies are insane. That's insane.

 > [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]
> Um, you can't have a brain without cells. Seems to me they are a
> "necessity". But necessity and property are simply top-down or bottom-up
> ways of describing the same thing. Your rhetorical shift, much as it's
> appreciated, is once again off the mark.

Sorry you can't tell the difference between a property and a necessity.

> [Platt]
> 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.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Yes, Puddy Meow (I am not kidding) has a routine, just as I do, but this
> hardly makes her a slave to automatic behavior. Why, just last weekend,
> she got out, a "sense of it's better here" led her on a strange quest,
> where she followed DQ. Sorry your cat is such a robot.

I like the name of your cat. Very DQish.  

> [Arlo previously]
> 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?
> 
> [Platt] 
> 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.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Still waiting for any Pirsig reference that associates "static quality"
> with the "front-edge of experience". But I know I'll be waiting for
> quite a loooooooong time.

Not long. See my post prior to this one. By the way, has it ever  
occurred to you that if there's a front edge of experience there must 
be a back edge?

Platt