[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Platt,

> Steve:
> Please don't use the word "intellectual" to describe your special
> level. It has nothing to do with Pirsig's MOQ and you will confuse
> people using that term in this forum. The patterns of value that
> comprise Pirsig's intellectual level is the world of ideas while
> Platt's individual level is a list of morals that define Quality for
> you.

Platt:
I don't think people in this forum are "easily confused." I have a 
higher regard for their intelligence than you do. As for the 
intellectual level being the world of ideas, what is moral about about 
the ideas of Mein Kampf, the Communist Manifesto and the Koran?   
 
Steve:
To the extent that these refer to ideas, their ideas are intellectual patterns. They don't have to be good ideas to be intellectual patterns. Keep in mind that the MOQ levels plus DQ include everything. Bad ideas aren't excluded.


> Note 95. "Intellect is simply thinking."

Right. Individuals think. Societies don't think.

> Note 25. "For purposes of MOQ precision, let's say that the intellectual level is the same as mind."

Right. Individuals have minds. Societies don't.

Steve:
We could list things that individuals do that societies don't all day. For example, only individuals become rapists and serial killers. So what? I still can't figure out what you think is so profound about that idea.

The point is that as Pirsig has defined the intellectual level, it is about thinking, not being thrifty. The question shouldn't be what is so moral about ideas. Having read Lila you should see that the type of value that holds an idea together is the same value we refer to when discussing morals. The question is what's so intellectual about being thrifty?


> Note 70. It's important to remember that both science and Eastern
> religions regard "the individual" as an empty concept. It is
> literally a figure of speech. If you start assigning a concrete reality
> to it you will find yourself in a philosophic quandary.

Platt:
Pirsig doesn't deny the concrete reality of the individuals he talks 
about in Lila, including himself. Maybe you can explain the 
"philosophical quandary."

Steve:
Pirsig calls "the individual" a figure of speech. There is no way that he meant individual level with his intellectual level.



> Platt:
> ...such as hard work, personal responsibility, self-discipline, 
> individual initiative, craftsmanship, commitment to excellence, thrift,
> delayed gratification, honor of achievement, optimism, life long pursuit
> of knowledge, etc., firmly established as the highest moral order,
> reversion to senseless animal behavior by freedom-loving individuals
> becomes a rarity.
> 
> Rigel would like to sum up this list up for you, Platt...
> "But I'd say that in general, and with many qualifications, quality is
> found in values I've learned in childhood and grown up with and used all
> my life and have found nothing wrong with. Those are values that are
> shared by personal friends and family, my law associates and other
> companions.  Because we believe in these common values we're able to act
> morally toward one another."
> 
> Steve:
> If you insist on your individual level having something to do with
> Pirsig's work I would suggest calling it "the Rigel level", after
> all, with hard work, personal responsibility, self-discipline,
> individual initiative, craftsmanship, commitment to excellence, thrift,
> delayed gratification, honor of achievement, optimism, life long pursuit
> of knowledge, etc. you are describing his ideas about quality.

Platt:
Perhaps you could present some evidence that these values are what 
Rigel subscribes to. Without such evidence, I will go by what Pirsig 
says about Rigel's adherence to the morality of the law, a social 
pattern. For evidence that the values above belong at a higher level 
than social, you might cite the following from Lila: 

"It was their optimism, their belief in the future, their codes of 
craftsmanship and labor and thrift and self-discipline that really 
built twentieth-century America. Since the Victorians disappeared the 
entire drift of this century has been toward a dissipation of these 
values." 

Steve:
This quote comes from Pirsig's description of the Victorians used to characterize social morality. It's only your social=bad and intellect=good bias that made you misread this. There is nothing wrong with these values, they just aren't intellectual.

"Today we are living in an intellectual and technological paradise and a
moral and social nightmare because the intellectual level of evolution, in
its struggle to become free of the social level, has ignored the social
level's role in keeping the biological level under control."

It is the loss of values like these that put us in a "moral and social nightmare" while their dissipation does not prevent us from having an "intellectual and technological paradise."

Regards,
Steve


 		
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