[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net>:

> 
> 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.

I do. The free force of life (Pirsig's idea)is an energy, hardly a "collective."
And you put your finger on it --"choicemaker for empirical existence," i.e.,
evaluator. You cannot divorce values from empiricism any more than you can divorce
the individual from consciousness.

Regards,
Platt





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