[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Platt:

> Platt said:
> > What I'm trying to say is that only individuals
> > "behave 
> > intellectually," regardless of what values they are
> > promoting or 
> > defending, as this site so clearly illustrates. 
> > Societies don't 
> > intellectualize.
> 
> Steve:
> Keep in mind that only individuals behave socially as
> well.

Platt:
Yes. But as I've said many times, the levels are defined in large part 
by their relationship to other levels. 
Steve:
I'm sure this is true for the way that you think of the levels, but Pirsig has defined intellect for us many times and to do so he never needed to relate it to other levels or individual people.

You want to say that all his definitions imply individuals since only individuals think, but only individuals participate in social patterns as well. The individual versus collective understanding of Pirsig's levels is looking more and more like a dead end as people dig up more and more quotes to contradict your view.

Here's another from ch 21 of Lila:
"In a value metaphysics, on the other hand, society and intellect are
patterns of value.  They're real.  They're independent.  They're not
properties of "man" any more than cats are the property of catfood or a
tree is a property of soil."

Not only is Pirsig contradicting that the levels are independent rather than as you say defined in relation to other levels, but he says that the levels aren't to be thought of as properties of individuals (or collectives) but rather  as patterns of value.

Intellect is not the property of the individual who Pirsig always talks about as a social entity.

"The pattern of the tree is dependent upon
the minerals in the soil and would die without them, but the tree's pattern
is not created by the soil's chemical pattern."

You always say that the intellectual level should be called the individual level since only individuals have ideas, but the analogy of this quote suggests that though ideas dies without individuals, ideas are not created by these individual social entities any more than dirt creates trees.

If you want to think of the individual as not just a social entity but also one who partipates in intellectual patterns, Pirsig's analogy here suggests that it is not biological man that creates social man which creates intellectual man, the individual man is rather a product of all theses types of patterns.

The types of patterns of value point of view in contrast to your types of people understanding of the levels turns your individual idea on it's head and says that this individual is inferred from his patterns rather than seeing the patterns as a creation of the individual.

If you don't want to go there, fine, but you are missing a lot of Pirsig's work by rejecting patterns of value for your Ken Wilber-filtered version of the MOQ.


An individual behaving socially 
is mostly a social level person. Lila, for example, was "intellectually 
nowhere." 



Steve:
Can you cite any examples where Pirsig calls someone "a social level person" versus "a biological level person"? 

I really wish you could forget all your Wilbur and start over with Pirsig. They are really not saying the same thing. It's funny that you and DMB think so when you disagree about everyting else.



> But I don't think you mean to use the word in
> that way. To you this Individual is a type of
> person--an ideal person, and I think it's worth
> exploring this type of person from an MOQ perspective.
> I think you are just muddling things to say that the
> intellectual level is the same as the individual
> level. I could go for talking about the Individual or
> what ever you want to call him/her as a type of person
> but not as a type of pattern of value. I would say the
> same thing about Sam's Eudomia or whatever that was.
> We are talking about a person who understands the
> relationships between the static levels and with DQ
> and lives accordingly. The question I think you are
> actually after is: what are his values? I think Ayn
> Rand had a similar project, but she didn't understand
> DQ or the way intellect is dependent on the social
> level.

In a sense you're right because the individual level as I picture it 
deals in ideas.

> But to return to the point, I'm glad you accept that
> an individual is participating in intellectual values
> when he deals with ideas regardless of what the ideas
> are.

Yes, ideas and individuals go together like fur on a cat.

As the above quotes demonstrate "fur on a cat" is not the relationship of man to ideas that Pirsig is talking about with his intellectual level.

Pirsig says about ideas that "They're not
properties of "man" any more than cats are the property of catfood"

For you idea is to man as fur is to cat, while in the MOQ, man is to idea as catfood is to cat.  In other words, your individual is catfood and your individual level idea is...I was going to say "dog crap" but I shouldn't.  It seems to work for you, you just shouldn't think that it's what Pirsig means by the intellectual level. 

Regards,
Steve

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