[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Platt Holden]

Hi Steve,

> Why would a higher level evolve if it is completely
> against the values of the level below? It has to have
> evolved because it originally helped sustain the lower
> level values before it found it's own goals that can
> be in conflict with the level below.

Right
 
> Pirsig says that the MOQ says that "the fundamental
> purpose of knowledge is to Dynamically improve and
> preserve society." He says that, "Knowledge has grown
> beyond this historic purpose and become an end in
> itself...But those original purposes are still there."

Right

> That is one of many reasons why it is a bad idea to
> call the 4th level "individual" in contrast to "the
> collective" when it evolved for the purpose of
> maintaining "the collective" (unless you agree that
> you are defining the 4th level as something different
> from Pirsig's 4th level).

Disagree. "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."

> My impression from Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality is
> that your Individual would have a home in Wilbur's
> upper right quadrant in the rational circle or
> whatever. Wilbur is happy to keep a subject/object
> distinction, but for Pirsig the individual subject is
> not primary.

Agree. Wilber keeps the subject/object distinction, but in Lila the  
brujo was very important as was not executing an individual criminal 
who posed to threat to society for "only a living being" (human 
individual) can perceive or adjust to DQ.   
 
> > > 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.
> 
> 
> Platt:
> > Like I've been saying, societies don't think, only
> > individuals thinks, 
> > ergo the individual level. . 
> 
> Steve:
> That reasoning is no better than saying that only
> individuals behave socially so the social level should
> be the individual level.
> 
> Plus, you are avoiding the point. Can you comment on
> my interpretation of Pirsig above?

Agree. Ideas are not properties (do not emerge from) society. 
Individuals "do the thinking." 

> Platt:
> > But the individual contains the all the levels.
> 
> Steve:
> Exactly. You've got it! That's why the individual
> can't be a level.

Why? Other levels include lower levels, yet become a level. 
 
> > >  Platt: As for where idea are created, I maintain
> > they 
> > > are created by individuals. Societies don't think.
> 
> Steve:
> 
> Would you mind trying again to understand my point
> here:
> 
> > > 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.

Sounds to me like a chicken or egg question. I say you can't have 
intellectual patterns without human beings (individuals) to create 
them.

> By the way, if the 4th level is the intellectual type
> person level and the social level is the collectivist
> type person level and the biological person is the
> criminal, does that make the inorganic level the dead
> person level? I really don't see how this "types of
> people" interpretation holds up.

I think you're beginning to get it. The biological level overcame 
death. Pirsig has a long explanation of how that occurred. 

> Steve:
> > > 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." 
> 
> Steve:
> I can't see how that quote is a response to what I
> said. Can you walk me through it?

Terror, violence and gang death are actions of individuals and thus  
people acting on the biological level. 

> Steve:
> Are you really agreeing that there are significant
> inconsistencies between your philosophy and Pirsig's
> MOQ or was that just the old school version of
> "whatever"?

I'm agreeing that you and I have different interpretations of the MOQ.

> Thanks for the continued dialogue,

Likewise.

Platt