[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Gene M]

> Thank you for your comments. I respectfully disagree. Both logic and sense
> have to do with reason. Now, one might be able to start with "wrong"
> assumptions and make anything logical (somehow that doesn't make sense
> though) but if a person starts with "right" assumptions only logical
> conclusions will make sense. Right?


I'm just saying that logic can be used to proven Anything using the starting
point you'd like. Thus it's hardly a perfect test of Reality. Logical things
often make no sense, because they begin with nonsenseical precepts. Sense is
something else, something closer to Quality I believe. You can make sense
without being in any way logical as well I think.

Perhaps part of the confusion is that the individual and the intellectual
> level in the MOQ are not things. They are concepts.


Ah! That is gonna be a problem if were to discuss this rationally. I believe
that concepts are as much a thing as a fish. Concepts and ideas are Real.
They Exist. I think my idea of a chair is just as real as the chair, and
both exist at once, seperate but related. Both are things.

> > 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.
>
> So you're saying the individual itself has a concrete reality?


I'm saying ideas are not the things they represent. My idea of myself and
someone else's idea of me are gonna be very different, is either one of them
correct? One generally assumes their own idea of themselves is "correct" but
that is often not the case. And no one is ever fully on bat either I feel. I
have an inherent reality, seperate from what I and others think of myself.

>The intellectual part? Maybe?
>
> Are you asking me? I don't know! What are you asking me for?


Sorry, I was just being facetious. It's a single part of the individual. The
intellectual part. That's it.

>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.
>
> So you subscribe to the belief that things exist inherently in themselves.
> I
> suggest this is at odds with the MOQ and may be another of the reasons why
> you object to Platt's individual "philosophy".


I think it works well with the MOQ! A biological pattern of values, such as
a oak tree, exists on it's own, whether I am aware of that oak tree or not.
Whether I have intellectual patterns related to the oak tree's biological
patterns, or the rock's inorganic patterns, does not detract from their own
patterns. My ideas about them are just another kind of pattern.

>
> >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.
>
> I think it is a mistake to look at the levels as existing independently of
> the intellectual level. The levels in the MOQ are conventions we can use
> to
> organize reality into an expanded point of view but they do not exist
> independently.


But Pirsig often goes on about how the levels are discrete! They're related
and affect each other, but they are essentially independent one from the
next. Although a certain amount is required from each to retain the overall
balance. There are periods in history in which intellectual levels did not
exist! There are even periods of history in which biological patterns did
not yet exist! At one point, only inorganic patterns existed, all alone.
They seem to have gotten along fine without intellect. As shown by the fact
that intellect now is able to exist. A rock can exist independently of my
intellect, of an ideas I might have of it, purely inorganic patterns of
value.

>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 didn't realize I was being offensive. Isn't he, though?


Depends, do you think Intelligent Design is being censured by not being
taught at public schools? And no one is stopping Platt from posting here,
none of us are even capable of such an act. We argue against him because we
believe he is wrong, no more.

I stand corrected. I thought Steve didn't like Platt's idea but it is the
> MOQ that dislikes Platt's idea.


I'm pretty sure Steve doesn't much care for it either. And neither do I. I
stand by the fact that it is completely at odds with the MOQ though.

>
> >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?
>
> I agree that in the context you've set up, what Platt is saying makes no
> sense. However, I think the MOQ says the individual is made up of all four
> levels plus undefined Dynamic Quality. An individual isn't the things that
> make up the individual, however. Your box analogy doesn't work (for me).


So, an individual is made up of these 4 things, but is not those 4 things?
Then what in goodness is the individual?
I think this is perhaps at the base of our disagreement. My example shows
exactly how I feel, and why I cannot accept the individual level as part of
my interpretation of the MOQ. As far as I understand the MOQ the individual
is as I have represented it. How do you define it so that this whole thing
makes sense?

>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?
>
> I think it is easy to forget how it is that we experience the world. Yes.
> You would be doing nothing more than killing your idea of that man. Your
> idea of the man is all there is.


Tell that to the man's widow, children, the police and the judge. I doubt
many people get off a murder rap with "Don't worry your honor! I only killed
my Idea of the deceased."

>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?
>
> You seem to believe the individual exists seperately and apart from the
> ideas they have, the people they know, and other peoples' ideas of that
> individual. I would suggest that belief is at odds with the MOQ. Ghosts
> aside, ideas do not live on after the individual dies. You also seem to be
> level shifting here between biological and intellectual patterns of value.


Plato's ideas would certainly appear to have lived on beyond him. No? If I
were to die tomorrow, my ideas would remain here on the archives of this
mailing list for as long as it was kept online, for others to peruse and
argue over if they wanted to. Thus I believe the ideas outlast the
individual.

Here's another case of ideas disconnected from the individual. Any time any
group of people get together to discuss an individual's ideas. Like here.
Other people will take the originator's idea and use it to their own ends,
molding it and changing it. This molding of the person's ideas goes on
independantly of the person who created the idea, yet it is still called
their idea.

Thanks again for your comments,
>
> Dan
>
> "To think you will not think
> Is also thinking of something.
> Will you resolve to think
> Even of not thinking?" (Takuan)
>

 yeah, that's a real toughy! The hardest part of not thinkig is not thinking
of not thinking. Heheh. Took me ages to get past that, still working on it
frankly.

I'm quite enjoying this discussion! It's an unusual change from arguing with
platt, in that you actually answer ideas given and respond rationally and
logically! This a great discussion, keep the responses coming.

-Gene