[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Platt Holden]

Hi Steve, 
 
> 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. 

I don't see how you can call something independent without relating it 
to something else. As for definition, the U.S. in its early days was 
often defined as independent from England. 

> 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.

The conflicts between levels is a central theme of the MOQ. "The higher 
level can often be seen to be in opposition to the lower level, 
dominating it, controlling it where possible for its own purposes."

> 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
>  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?

At the individual level we find indenpendently minded human beings who 
rely on their intellect to resist the conformities demanded by the mob. 
That is why they insist of free speech, free press, free religion, etc. 

[Steve]
> 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."

That's Wilber's view? Perhaps you have quotes to back it up. . 

> 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.

Up to "explaining" you've described Pirsig's tests of truth, not the 
intellectual level. Where did "explaining a broad range of experience 
vs. specific instances, etc." come from? 

> 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.

Are you saying like some others that all human activity is social, that 
there are just high quality and low quality societies?

> 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.

Here Pirsig says what I've been saying all along, that only individuals 
holds ideas. 

> 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.

Like I've been saying, societies don't think, only individuals thinks, 
ergo the individual level. . 

> 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.

But the individual contains the all the levels.

>  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. ;-)

And of course, you do. :-)

> > 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.

I don't see much difference.

> 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.

>From Pirsig: "What's coming out of the urban slums, where old Victorian 
social moral codes are almost completely destroyed, isn't any new 
paradise the revolutionaries hoped for, but a reversion to rule by 
terror, violence and gang death-the old biological might-makes-right 
morality of prehistoric brigandage that primitive societies were set up 
to overcome." 

> 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.

If you say so. 

Regard, 
Platt