[MD] Distinguishing Levels

[Platt Holden]

Hi Steve, 

[Platt previously]
> I was objecting to your statement that intellectual patterns can 
> generally judged on true-false scale. My neighbor's assessment of the
> Democrat candidate for president is certainly an intellectual pattern,
> but can hardly be judged on a true-false scale with any possibility of
> wide agreement. Take another example: my English professor's
> interpretation of the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia is
> definitely an intellectual pattern, but it's truth or falsity is not
> provable. When it comes to critical opinion which makes up at least half
> of all intellectual patterns, the true-false dichotomy is up for grabs
> and thus of little consequence. Science and technology depend on on the
> true-false scale, but not all intellectual patterns fall in those
> realms. Trial courts also strive for a true-false assessment, but even
> there opinion plays a large role.          

[Steve] 
> The point I was trying to make has nothing to do with whether
> intellectual patterns really are true or really are false or are
> provable or can be widely agreed upon.  I'm just saying that an
> intellectual pattern is something that we can have a  conversation about
> with regard to it's truth or falsehood.  For example the intellectual
> pattern known as F=ma can be argued to be true or false where as the
> social pattern of motherhood can not be said to be true of false.

The point I was trying to make was that the statement, "I like ice 
cream" is an intellectual pattern about which we cannot have a 
conversation about with regards to its truth or falsehood. It is simply 
a statement of a personal opinion. By contrast, the intellectual 
pattern, "It is raining" can engender a conversation about its truth or 
falsehood. Many intellectual patterns are of the former rather than the 
latter type. But all intellectual patterns emerge from individuals, not 
societies. As Pirsig said, "Someone has to be first."

[Steve]
> > For me government is far too broad a concept to place
> > on a single level. I'm sure you admit that our
> > Founding Fathers where engaged in intellectual
> > activity when they created our government.  When
> > government occurs at the point of a gun (as you like
> > to remind us that it ultimately does) it is
> > maintaining order in a biological way.

[Platt] 
> >From Pirsig's SODV paper describing the social level:
> 
> "The social patterns in the next box down include such institutions as
> family, church and government. They are the patterns of culture that the
> anthropologist and sociologist study." 

[Steve]
> Pirsig also described intellect as simply thinking and as the
> manipulation of abstract symbols that stand for patterns of experience. 
> Are you saying that thinking is not a part of modern government?

Above you said motherhood is social pattern. Are you saying that 
thinking is not part of motherhood?

[Platt] 
> As far as I know, every social group has some form of government 
> whether a Indian chief and his counsel of elders or a CEO and his board
> of directors. And every social group follows an ethos of right and
> wrong, whether enforced by informal sanctions or by law. 

[Steve]
> I think to understand the social level it is more about understanding
> that ethos that is acepted without reasoning and is perpetuated through
> unconscious copying. When we start to give reasons for our rules we are
> getting into intellect. Sometimes such reasoning is intellectual support
> for social patterns but the reasoning itself is intellectual.
 
Agree. Reason is intellectual and individual. Societies don't reason. 
All the more reason for identifying the intellectual level as the 
individual level. :-)

Regards,
Platt