[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Ham Priday]

Hi Platt, Case --

Case:
> Then we are agreeing that the ideas contain are
> collaborative efforts.  There really is no individual
>  effort to credit or blame?

Platt:
> No. We agree that an idea(s) cannot be separated from
> an individual(s).
>
> Creative people are the catalysts of evolution. They tap
> into DQ, the "free force of life."  That's why creative
> individuals are so important.  Pirsig illustrates this with
> the story of the brujo, and puts the individual front and
> center by observing "someone has to be first."

You know, Platt, I could support your 'Individual Level' of only you could
support the 'Individual Intellect'.  But while you concede that ideas cannot
be separated from individuals, you will not allow that ideas are CREATED by
individuals.  Instead you say: "They tap into DQ, the 'free force of life'."
There you go again, giving token support to the Collective.

What happened to your admiration for the Randian view that only individuals
have thoughts?
Need I requote her?

"...from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we
have comes from a single attribute of man -- the functioning of his
reasoning
mind.  But the mind is an attribute of the individual.  There is no such
thing as
a collective brain.  There is no such thing as a collective thought.  An
agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn
upon many individual thoughts.  It is a secondary consequence.  The primary
act -- the process of reason -- must be performed by each man alone.  We can
divide a meal among many men.  We cannot digest it in a collective stomach.
No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man.  No man can use his
brain to think for another.  All the functions of body and spirit are
private.  They cannot be shared or transferred."

Is this "free force of life" that we allegedly "tap into" your idea or
Pirsig's?

I'm committed to Rand's concept that knowledge, intellect, and ideas are
proprietary to individual cognizance.  They originate with the individual,
are created by the individual, and acted upon by the individual.  The
individual consciousness is the primary mediator and choicemaker of
empirical existence.  I would have expected you to agree.

Regards,
Ham