[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Platt,


Platt said:
Does the truth of an idea determine whether it is good or bad? What 
about the idea that Stalin had to silence dissenters? He acted on the 
idea, it's true. But on what basis would you say it's a bad idea? 

Steve:
I don't think we need a basis here since no one would disagree. But to play along...

I assume that Stalin had a rationale for his behavior and therefore was participating in intellectual patterns. The truth or falsehood of his arguments for taking the action he did could be discussed. In addition to participating in intellectual patterns, he also used his social authority to muster biological force. 

Applying the moral hierarchy is not as simple as intellectual=good, social = bad. Stalin's silencing of dissenters is recognized to be immoral when considering the evolutionary hierarchy as a whole and deciding whether such behavior contributes to or hinders evolution of static patterns toward dynamic quality.

Platt:

What does SOLWAQI stand for?

Steve:
It doesn't stand for anything other than Platt's Philospophy of the Individual versus the Collective.

It's intended to remind you of Bo's attempt to improve the MOQ with SOLAQI where intellect is the subject/object distinction, which I see as just as WAQI as your idea.


> Platt:
> Because by the MOQ moral evolutionary hierarchy, individuals who are
> rapists and serial killers are dominated by biological values. 
> 
> Steve:
> >From an evolutionary hierarchy of individuals perspective, isn't the
> >serial killer a fairly modern type of individual? He must be post
> >social level because there were no serial killers before "the
> >collective." 

Platt:
There were no humans of any kind before "the collective." All humans 
are a combination of all levels plus the capability of responding to 
DQ. What counts in looking at their behavior is what level dominates.
 
Steve:
I'm not convinced that the serial killer is just a biologically dominated person. I think he is insane. At any rate whether you think a serial killer is insane or not, how does SOLWAQI deal with insanity?

In Pirsig's philosophy, an insane person is someone with illegal intellectual patterns. It is not an issue of being dominated by one level or another, it is a matter of bad intellectual patterns. Your philosophy does not seem to allow for such things because for you intellect=good individual, society=evil collective.

"When an insane person-or
a hypnotized person or a person from a primitive culture-advances some
explanation of the universe that is completely at odds with current
scientific reality...He is just a person who is valuing intellectual
patterns that, because they are outside the range of our own culture, we
perceive to have very low quality."


> Platt:
> The highest moral level (the level of art may be higher) is dominated by
> independent thinking individuals who value freedom from social value
> conformity and biological value physical force above all else. In other
> words, individuals like you. 
> 
> Steve:
> As I said before, I think it is useful to talk about types of people in
> terms of relative domination by different types of patterns of value,
> but you are not talking about anything like the MOQ when you say that a
> level is dominated by a type of person.

Platt:
I'm talking very much like the MOQ. You apparently forgot about Wilson, 
Roosevelt, Hitler, Humphrey, Galileo, scientists, philosophers, 
scientists, criminals and hippies not to mention Dusenberry, Rigel, 
Lila, John Wooden Leg and of course my hero, the brujo -- all talked 
about at length by Pirsig in the MOQ. 

Steve:
I still don't see how it makes sense for a level to be dominated by a person.



> Platt:
> These moral attributes are personal, not social. There's no way you can
> honestly say "craftsmanship" and "self-discipline" are social patterns.
> Nor are they inorganic or biological. There's no place to put these
> moral patterns except at the intellectual "thinking" level, for they
> constitute the basis for individual liberty that is the intellectual
> level's most significant and dominating idea.  
> 
> Steve:
> Craftmanship is one of those words we use to refer to Quality. I don't
> know that it belongs on any level.

Platt:
Pirsig said the levels include everything.

Steve:
What level is Quality on?

To the extent that craftmanship (and likewise, Quality) is a concept it is intellectual, but then so is shoddiness.

> Self-discipline is part of the social-biological code, the one that says
> that you shouldn't get drunk and pick up bar ladies.

Platt:
Without a self (which Pirsig denies) there's no self-discipline. I say 
in the language of everyday life there is a self which belongs at the 
individual level as distinct from just being a cipher at the social 
level.

Steve:
The question was not about whether there is a self in every day language. the question is about whether it is social morality that says we need to deny our biological urges and not get drunk and not pick up bar ladies or is it intellectual. I think you are taking a strange view of intellect to say that self-discipline is an intellectual issue, but I guess it goes without saying at this point that I think you are taking a strange view of intellect.
 
Regards,
Steve

 			
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