[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Platt,

> 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.

Platt:
As a matter of fact he did relate intellect to other levels, especially 
the social level. For example, in Lila he wrote: "Intellect has its own 
patterns and goals that are as independent of society as society is 
independent of biology." 


Steve:
Wait a second. How can you use a quote that says that the levels are independent as an example of how they are defined in relation to one another? He is drawing an analogy between pairs of levels, not defining them. He doesn't say that social patterns are identified as being those that are less biological or intellectual patterns as ones that aren't so social. This is what you are doing with your individual versus collective. 

The levels each have evolved their independent goals but they orginally evolved to support the levels below. If intellect didn't support society it never would have happened just as social patterns would not have evolved it they didn't aid in survival. I could dig out quotes if you need them. That's another reason why it doesn't make sense to define intellect as a individual versus society issue. There are conflicts between the levels as they evolved to seek out their own goals, but for the most part they support another's existence or they wouldn't have evolved as they did. The more I think about it the worse your individual level idea sounds to me.

Steve:
> You want to say that all his definitions imply individuals since only
> individuals think, but only individuals participate in social patterns
> as well.

Platt:
I have never denied that only individuals participate in social 
patterns. In fact, I have made it quite clear that the social and 
intellectual levels are reserved for humans. Animals and atoms need not 
apply. What I do suggest is that at the intellectual level, individuals 
dominate society. 

Steve:
 I can't make any sense of "at the intellecual level, individuals dominate society" based on a patterns of value view of Pirsig's levels. 
 
 What or who is supposed to be "at the intellectual level"? Can you see that it makes no sense to say that if the levels represent types of patterns of value?

This is why I think you are doing a Wilburized version of Pirsig. Wilbur's levels do represent types of people or worldviews or types of societies where the intellectual level could be something to be reached. A person or society can be at or on the intellectual level in a Wilburized MOQ. But for Pirsig, the levels are types of patterns of value so only ideas as intellectual patterns are "on the intellectual level."

Platt:
 The moral principle that supports  
democracy, the most moral social pattern yet devised, is based on the 
freedom of the individual. The "intellectual good" is an "individual 
good." By contrast,  the "social good' is the central principle of 
totalitarian societies. 

Steve:

For Pirsig, good on the intellectual level is coherence, truth, logical consistency, parsimony, explaining a broad range of experience versus specific instances, etc. And a society that supports these intellectual values is more moral than one that subjects truth to what is socially acceptable or the social status of the person who makes the assertion. You don't have to change the names of the levels to get there.

Steve earlier:
> 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."

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

Platt:
Pirsig talks about the individual as entity comprised of all levels 
plus the ability to respond to DQ. But it his intellect that dominates 
the other levels.   

Steve:
I shouldn't have said always, but when he says, "A person who holds an idea is a social entity, no matter what ideas he holds. The ideas he holds are an intellectual entity, no matter who holds them." he is quite clearly in disagreement with you on the point.

As for "it is his intellect that dominates the other levels" I don't know what that could mean.

Steve:
>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.

Platt:
Above you quoted Pirsig saying the levels are independent. In this 
quote, he says the levels are dependent. Can you perhaps clear up this 
contradiction. I can't.

Steve:
 That quote is saying that the levels are independent--that a tree is something completely different than dirt and is not owned by dirt.  Likewise ideas are not thought of by Pirsig as the property of the social entity that we usually think of as having done the thinking, but rather the individual is inferred from these patterns.

The dependent aspect of the levels is that the intellectual level can not exist without social patterns which can not exist without biololgical patterns, etc.  But the levels do not contain other levels like Wilbur's holons. Pirisig's levels are discrete as he often says.

 Platt: As for where idea are created, I maintain they 
are created by individuals. Societies don't think. 


Steve:
In Pirisg's MOQ, the individual in inferred from the patterns of value. Once we make that inference it makes sense to think of ideas as produced by the individual but from a patterns of value perspective it is the patterns of value including intellectual patterns that define the individual.
> 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.

Platt:
If you are saying that Pirsig, the individual created the levels and 
the patterns, I agree. If not, then I don't understand your point.


Steve:
That you don't understand Pirsig goes without saying. ;-)

Of course it is Pirsig who created the MOQ, but Pirsig asks us to rethink this common sense answer and see where it takes us to think about where it takes us to think of Quality coming first rather than subjects and objects.

Steve:
> 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.

Platt:
I 'm not aware that I was proposing a Wilber-filtered version of the 
MOQ. Perhaps you can explain further.

Steve:
Pirsig's levels are not the same as Wilbur's holons. Could I ask you to explain the differences and similarities as you see it? I've tried to do so above and in the recent post to Matt K.

Platt:
> 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"? 


Platt:
Well, he calls criminals as acting at the biological level. Is that 
what you mean? I presume when they desist from crime they rise to the 
social level. 

Steve:
I  think that supports talking about biological versus social behavior but not a person being a biological versus a social level person.

As Pirsig says, "A person who holds an idea is a social entity, no matter what ideas he holds."  He never to my memory says that one person is "on the intellectual level" while another is "on the biological level." If you could give any examples where he does that it would lend support to your "types of people" interpretation of the moq levels.

Steve:
> 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.

Platt:
Funny. I don't think DMB agrees with my individual level suggestion at 
all. He loves government regulations. 

Steve:
That's sort of my point. You both use this Wilburized version of Pirsig that doesn't work as evidenced by the fact that you draw completelty opposite conclusions from it.

Steve:

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


Platt:
Right. They are properties of individual men and women, not "man" in 
general, 


 Steve:
 
 Come on, now you are just playing games. You know that wasn't his point.

Platt:
although "properties" is rather a strange word to apply to man 
or cats. 


Steve:
Exactly. You have lots of disagreements with Pirsig. That's what I've been trying to say. You're not talking about Pirsig's MOQ with your individual level. It's Platt's Wilburized MOQ.

Regards,

Steve

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