[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Platt,

> If you want to play that game I'll call your interpretation of the MOQ
> SOLNUTI.
 
> Steve:
> That would be only fair if I were trying to make some sort of WAQI or
> NUTI correction to the MOQ.

Platt:
So your interpretation of the MOQ is the only correct one? I don't 
think so. Seems to me your interpretation is static, like swishing old 
tea around in your cup. That's NUTI.

Steve:
To read someone is to interpret him, but to rename his levels individual and collective instead of intellectual and social is not an interpretation. It is your attempt to improve or correct Pirsig.

You deserve credit (read blame) for your changes. I can understand not liking SOLWAQI, and as I said, I'd be glad to use whatever name you want so we can distinguish your ideas from the MOQ.

> > 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?
> 
> Platt:
> Like Pirsig.  
> 
> Steve said:
> > 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.
> 
> Platt:
> Only bad because society says so. 
> 
> Steve:
> Or bad because you say so. What other standard do you have besides
> logical consistency, economy of explanation, and agreement with
> experience?

Is that your test of sanity? My test is can the person take care of 
herself.

Steve:
That was the test for the bad ideas you we're referring to when you said "only bad because society says so." The quote that you were referring to is quoted again below.


Steve said:
> The point is that the insane person is not an individual versus society
> issue but a low versus high quality intellectual patterns issue. Your
> philosphy does not deal with insanity like Pirsig because yours is all
> about what types of patterns are dominating a given person.

Platt:
I disagree with your interpretation of how Pirsig deals with sanity. 
Lila went insane. She had no intellectual patterns to speak of. She 
fell back to biological patterns which in a human being often results 
in helplessness.
 
Steve:
Can you back up your claim that Lila had no intellectual patterns?

Pirsig: "When an insane person-...advances some explanation of the universe that is completely at odds with current scientific reality, we do not have to believe he has jumped off the end of the empirical world.  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."

So an insane person in the MOQ is one who is valuing bad intellectual patterns, not someone who doesn't have intellectual patterns.

If in SOLWAQI, an insane person is just a biologically dominated person, then SOLWAQI does not do as good a job as the MOQ at explaining insanity because it can't distinguish an insane person from a caveman.


> Platt:
> Society=conformity, individual = freedom. All else being equal, which is
> better? 
> 
> Steve:
> All, things being equal, the more dynamic route is always better. But I
> don't see how it makes sense to say that an individual is better than
> the society of which he is a part.

I know you don't see. I blame myself for my lack of communicative 
ability.
 
> Unless you are talking about crafting sentences or equations, I don't
> see what is intellectual about craftmanship.

Platt:
Craftsmanship, like honor, is something individuals hold internally as 
moral goals. They come from a deep intellectual understanding of how  
the world works at its best. 

Steve:
I suspected that honor was in SOLWAQI's individual level. Honor is a social pattern in the MOQ because it is about social recognition and respect. It is also is a good word for describing Rigel's values:

"There's always been something wrong, logically," the author went on.  "How
can an act of love, that does no injury to anyone, be so evil? . . . Think
about it.  Who was injured?"
Richard Rigel thought about it.  He said, "It wasn't any act of love.  Lila
Blewitt doesn't know what love means.  It was an act of deceit."...He said, "Let me try another word: 'Honor.' The person we are talking about
dishonored his wife and he dishonored his children and he dishonored
everyone who put trust in him, as well as himself.  People forgave him for
his weakness, but they lost respect for him and that was what finished him
for any position of responsibility."

Your SOLWAQI's individual and Rigel sure have a lot in common.

> Platt:
> I'm pitting the free individual self against the collective conformist
> mob. That's intellect's conclusion of a higher morality, or as Pirsig
> said, " . . . the moral codes that established the supremacy of the
> intellectual order over the-social order." 

Steve: That doesn't sound
> like self-discipline to me. Can you explain how it is intellectual or do
> you agree that the usual use of the term refers to denying biological
> urges in favor of social quality?

Platt:
Since my explanations never make sense in your eyes, I see no reason to even try. Some things we either "get" or we don't, and no amount of 
explanation makes a wit of difference.

Steve:
I still have enough respect for you to think that some day you'll get it.

Regards,
Steve

 		
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