[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Steve Peterson]

Hi, Bob. It's me. Platt Holden.

Platt what?

You, know. Like the Platteral Shift?

Oh, yeah. How have you been?

Well I've been thinking...wouldn't it have been better
to call the intellectual level the individual level
since only individuals have thoughts?

Gee, I never thought of that. It's true. Only
individuals do have thoughts.

Yeah, and you said only human beings can respond to
dynamic quality so I think you should have called it
Human Quality.

hmmm

And only you wrote the MOQ, so you should call it the
Metaphysics of Pirsig instead. And that part about
paintings in a gallery...well only individuals paint
so you should call painting individualing. 

Wow, I sure have a lot of work to do rewriting Lila.
Those are all super ideas. Maybe you can help me with
the rewrite, and we can call it Lila 2: The sequel or
An Inquiry into why people think they need to change
all the labels I used.

Sure. Then I could get credit for thinking up so many
improvements.

Well you are right about only  individuals having
thoughts and that is such a profound and important
idea that it would be a shame for me to just keep on
calling ideas "intellectual patterns" when a better
name is clearly "individual patterns"...wait a minute.
That doesn't quite work. Individual patterns of value?
Now I remember why I didn't call them that to be begin
with. I called the fourth level the INTELLECTUAL level
because it refers to the collection of INTELLECTUAL
patterns of value.

I don't know, "individual patterns of value" has kind
of a nice ring to it.

Perhaps, but it doesn't mean anything, whereas
"intellectual level" clearly refers to intellect--that
aspect of an individual that is distinct from the
other types of patterns that an individual
participates in. See? That way there is no confusion,
because everyone knows what intellect is.

Yeah, intellect is like that guy John Galt in Atlas
Shrugged.

Well that guy was pretty smart, but like any other
individual, he is a collection of patterns of value of
all types. He is pretty skilled in his manipulation of
abstract symbols, so society would call him an
intellectual, but when I refer to intellectual
patterns I'm referring to the ideas themselves, not
the individual who holds the ideas. The MOQ levels
don't refer to types of people but to types of
patterns of value. The MOQ contains everything in it's
four static levels plus DQ, not just people.

I think I understand now.

Sure you do, Platt. But don't let the other folks in
the MOQ discussion group know that.  If people start
to get the idea that you can be convinced of something
through logical argumentation they may  try to
convince you to be a socialist.

...Or a homo...That's true! It would probably work
too. I better just keep going with my individual level
thing. I just hope it doesn't catch on and distort
people's perception of your work. But if the choice is
that or being turned into a liberal I guess I'll have
to keep distorting your MOQ.




__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com