[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Platt Holden]

Hi Ham, 

Good to know you are still with us and auditing the conversation. Your 
views are always welcome despite the nasty, foul-mouthed response you 
got from Arlo. 

> Platt, isn't it apparent to you by now that the intellect of the MD is
> bound to the Collective?  The individual accounts for nothing; it is the
> Almighty Collective that moves everything toward "the better", thereby
> earning its place in the Quality heirarchy.  Until something is
> registered in the Collective it has no value.

Yes, that is the interpretation of the MOQ from our left-wing friends 
who worship the collective as the arbiter of all values, except of 
course when the collective vote goes against their individual Utopian 
wishes as in the past two elections here in the U.S. and the recent one 
in Great Britain. However, I think Pirsig makes it clear that the 
intellectual level, or as I call it the level of individual free 
thinkers, opposes the social level, accounting for Pirsig's insistence 
that free speech, free press, free travel, property ownership, etc. 
etc. are intellectually-driven oppositions to authoritarian, 
politically correct social demands. Quoting from Pirsig's SODV paper, 
"Intellectual values of truth and freedom of opinion often oppose 
social patterns of government." Such a distinction between the 
hierarchy of values either escapes or is ignored by our leftist, 
government-programs-to-cure-all-ills-loving comrades.

> As one who has problems with the logic of dividing Quality into
> differentiated levels, I have to ask why we need them.  The actualized
> world is a relational system that is experienced as phenomena demarcated
> by gaps, contradictions, and differences.  Isn't that differentiated
> enough?  Must we now add arbitrary levels to further parse it?   Where
> does that take us? Trying to achieve a metaphysical "fusing" of levels
> doesn't lead to an undivided source, nor does it advance our wisdom or
> understanding.

If like Pirsig you begin with the premise that the universe is a moral 
order (that I know you reject out of hand), then it's incumbent to 
explain how atoms are moral, ants are moral, nations are moral and 
human individuals are moral. Seems you can only do that if you 
differentiate the world into different moral levels and show how each 
is different (and opposed to) the others while maintaining the "some 
things are better than others" moral foundation that applies to all. 

> Gentlemen, I submit to you that the cognizant human individual is the
> subjective core of existence.  It is man's experience and intellect that
> constructs existence.  As Protagoras stated back in the 5th century
> B.C., "Man is the measure of all things, of the existence of things that
> are and of the non-existence of things that are not."  Frankly, there's
> more wisdom in that single statement than in all the works of Mr.
> Prisig.

You and I disagree about such Berkeley idealism. It makes no sense to 
me that my cat depends on my "measuring" for his existence any more 
that he ceases to exist when I turn my back on him. To talk about my 
cat requires a man, yes. To be a cat doesn't. 

> A "collective" has no awareness of its own; it doesn't think, sense, or
> create.  It accounts for nothing, except for the power that individuals
> consign to it.  If Value is the core of individual awareness --
> including Intelligence, Truth and Quality -- then the fundamental
> relation of existence is between the infinitesimal perspective of the
> individual and the infinite Essence of the Absolute Source.

That the collective has "no awareness of its own" is obviously true. 
Phrases like the "collective will,"  "collective conscience," and 
"collective experience" are oxymorons. Experiences, like ideas, only 
occur one person at a time. For intellectual convenience we bunch like 
things into groups. But that's all groups are, intellectual 
conveniences. They exist only in imagination.   

> All of this leveling sophistry is leading nowhere.  It continues to
> amaze me to what lengths intelligent people will go in order to make the
> life-experience something that it isn't.
> 
> But, hey, I don't want to be a party-pooper.  Please continue.  I don't
> know what it will prove, but maybe you'll eventually succeed in getting
> all the properties of man set at their "indisputably correct" levels.
 
I doubt it and gladly so. How dull it would be if we all agreed. Then 
the phantom "collective" might actually become real. Perish the 
thought!

Best regards,
Platt