[MD] Distinguishing Levels

[Michael Hamilton]

Hi Arlo,

I thought I'd take you up on your tangent:

> [Arlo]
> Let me take a tangent and say, I think that social patterns described *are*
> intellectual patterns. "Family" is an intellectual pattern used to describe
> particular social habits, but it is not the social habits it attempts to
> represent. This is true too of biological and inorganic patterns. "H20" is
> not the inorganic pattern it attempts to symbolically represent.

I remember saying something similar to this to Paul in our last
discussion. He rightly pointed out that I was bringing a kind of
representionalism, a SOMish view of language, into the MOQ. It's not
much different from saying that intellectual patterns are subjective
representations of objective social/biological/inorganic patterns. In
any case, you're perilously close to saying that all language is
intellectual. To make sense of Pirsig's levels, we need to keep
language as a social basis from which the 4th level arises.

You're suggesting that by naming things, such as "family", we create
an intellectual pattern. I have a suggestion for keeping things fairly
simple while staying away from representationalism. I suggest that it
is by naming "family" that we individuate it _as a pattern_.
Obviously, the "social habits" you alluded to - procreation, mothers
and/or fathers caring for offspring, etc - existed before being named
in a human language; however, it is only when these habits are
gathered under a single name that they become the single pattern -
family.

Now, "habit" is another word for a pattern, isn't it? And some of
these habits surely pre-date human language. So the problem for this
theory is: how are these primal habit-patterns individuated and
perpetuated? More precisely, how do they become patterns or habits in
the first place? This is a question for biologists, so I can only
speculate. Staying with the "family" theme, let's take the example of
a mother brown bear taking care of her cubs and teaching them how to
survive. (Incidentally, isn't this an interesting instance of
biological necessity giving rise to the first basic social patterns?)
The 'motivation' for this habit is survival of the brown bear species
as a whole, so it seems reasonable to suppose that DNA plays a part in
this habit, although I hesitate to posit something as simple and
clear-cut as a "child-rearing gene". Anyway, the question of the
extent to which animal habits are individuated, by DNA or otherwise,
prior to our naming of them, is a very interesting one. To what extent
are they codeified and passed on, and to what extent do they 'just
happen'? Imitation of elders must play a part, too, but imitation also
requires that the imitator individuates patterns to be imitated.
Hmm...

<snip>
> Believing or disbelieving, I'd go so far as to say, ARE intellectual level
> activities.

Kind of agree. Deciding whether to believe or disbelieve is an
intellectual activity. However, we need to distinguish considered,
justified belief from unquestioning belief/acceptance, which can be
identified as a crucial mechanism of the social level.

Regards,
Mike