[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Gene M]

> I appreciate that. Still, I contend that Platt is making sense in a
> logically consistent manner. That isn't to say you are wrong, however.


There is an important difference between logical consistency and sense. If
you start with the right assumptions you can make Anything logically
consistent. However they still might make absolutely no sense. Now platt's
individual level, I'm certain, makes perefect sense to him. But for me, it
makes none at all. It has nothing to do with the intellectual level as I
view it.

They are both concepts.


Salmon and minnows are both fish, they're not the same thing. These are two
concepts, that are not at all the same thing.

Dan:
>
> In the MOQ, Quality, the Dynamic-static split, and the moral hierarchy of
> static patterns are all intellectual patterns of value. The idea of the
> individual is too.


Correct, the Idea of an individual is an intellectual pattern. The
indvididual itself is not however.

>Steve:
> >That is why the individual is not Pirsig's fourth level. Only part of the
> >individual
>
> Dan:
>
> Which part?


The intellectual part? Maybe?

Steve:
>
> >is contained in the set of all patterns of thought known as the
> >intellectual level, so the intellectual level is not the individual.
>
> Dan:
>
> I think that the MOQ would say the concept of the individual is an
> intellectual pattern of value just as the concept of the intellectual
> level
> is an intellectual pattern of value.


Precisely correct again. All concepts and ideas reside on the intellectual
level. However the things themselves, do not. The concept of the individual
is an intellectual pattern, however that does make the individual part of
the intellectual level. If I have an idea about someone, that idea is part
of the intellectual level, the other person however continues to exist
indpendent of that.

Please provide evidence where the MOQ says we can separate any part of the
> individual and contain said part in the intellectual level.


The individual's ideas can be seperated from the individual and put into the
intellectual level. That's what the intellectual level is. Ideas, concepts,
abstraction. The individual's body, for example, is Not part of the
intelelctual level. That's why I can't call it the individual level, the
individual is made up of all the levels, not contained in any one of them.

Okay. Now we're getting to it. So you want to impose restictions on what we
> can think and write about the MOQ. And (of course) you (who else) will be
> the authority who decrees what works and what doesn't. Yep. That is the
> language of everyday life. What (I think) is so cool about the MOQ is that
> it gives us a way of stepping outside the shortsightedness of the language
> of everyday life. Most people don't see that though. Do they?


You seem to have taken a whole Lot of offense here. I'm not sure why, I
guess you feel maybe platt is being censured? I'm not sure. It's not that
Steve is trying to dictate what is and is not MOQ, he's simply stating the
observation that platt's individual level makes no consistence logical sense
within the greater framework of the MOQ. He's not saying it's wrong because
he doesn't like it, it's wrong because the MOQ says it is wrong.

I thought he said that the individual and the intellectual level can be
> viewed as the same. That's what we're talking about. Right? I'm not for
> sure
> but I really hope it is. What I think I said was that what Platt is saying
> and what Mr. Pirsig is saying is not mutually exclusive. I am pretty sure
> about that (not that I am right - mind you - but rather about what I
> said).
> Still, I thought Platt had an idea, not a philosophy. Platt has a
> philosophy? Wow! Now that is cool!


As far as I understand it, that is what you said, and what we are in fact
talking about.
What were saying is that the intellectual level and a human individual
cannot possibly be construed as the same thing by the MOQ, the very idea
makes No sense.

It's like you have a box with 4 boxes in it. All contents of the greater box
are sorted into those 4 boxes. The individual is comprised of these 4
levels, and all things that make up the individual rest inside the levels.
The greater box is defined by the contents of the smaller boxes inside it.
Now you have platt trying to tell me that the greater box is actually the
same as one of the 4 smaller boxes inside it. So it contains itself. That
means the big box holds the little box, which holds the big box. It's
infinite recursion. Logically, it doesn't hold up for me.

Can you see why I am saying it makes no sense?

>
> >Dan:
> >To "kill" the individual is to kill the idea of the
> >individual. Therefore, it appears that the concept of the individual and
> >the individual cannot stand apart. Would you agree?


I'm not at all sure I agree with this! This seems like essentially nonsense
to me. So if I were to shoot a man, I would inf act be doing nothing more
than killing my idea of that man? How does that work? When somebody dies
does everyone immediately forget they ever existed? No. When somebody dies
other people's idea of them live on, their own ideas even live on, in
recorded form and in the minds' of others. Ideas do not die with the
individual. The potential for that individual to form new ideas is lost, but
so is their potential to defecate. That doesn't mean anything of importance
to the levels.  What are you trying to say here?

-Gene