[MD] Science and the MOQ

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Bo]
That intellect have its origin in society is plain, but just as plain 
is it that the next level is a break with its origin.

[Arlo]
Certainly. Although the origins of "mind" social, intellectual 
patterns (of which the "self" is one) are the result of the interplay 
between the social consciousness (collective consciousness, Pirsig 
calls it) and the unique experiences of the bounded organism. Here 
again I think the confusion draws from an (low quality) purist 
dichotomy between "individual" and "collective", on all the levels.

To be brief, I do NOT deny the unique contribution of the "self" 
pattern to other intellectual patterns, nor do I deny that 
"intellectual" patterns are MORE than the social patterns from which 
they emerge.

When you look at the MOQ, and consider the emergent process between 
levels, as well as the complexity spectrum within levels, I think its 
apparent that the words "individual" and "collective" (1) apply to 
all levels, and apply to various patterns within levels, (2) 
"individuals" appear OUT OF the "collective" activity of lesser 
patterns (atoms to cells, cells to bodies, bodies to cultural habits, 
etc.), and (3) any pattern is BOTH an "individual" and "collective" 
depending on your level of focus.

When we specifically look at the "self" dynamic, we see that it 
originates from the collective social activity of the culture. 
Moreso, we see that its "agency", or ability to act upon its unique 
bounded experience, is not antithetical to its social origins, but 
derives FROM its social origins. A human being surviving from infancy 
on a desert island would have NO self-concept, and because of the 
absence of social patterns, would have NO agency on the intellectual level.

Two of Pirsig's statements taken together confirm this.

"If Descartes had said, "The seventeenth century French culture 
exists, therefore I think, therefore I am," he would have been correct." (LILA)

Mental patterns do not originate out of inorganic nature. They 
originate out of society... what a mind thinks is as dominated by 
social patterns as social patterns are dominated by biological 
patterns... There is no direct scientific connection between mind and 
matter. As the atomic physicist, Niels Bohr, said, "We are suspended 
in language." Our intellectual description of nature is always 
culturally derived." (LILA)

In the first, we see that the ability to "think" occurs only upon the 
assimilation of a cultural consciousness. "Men invent responses to 
Quality, and among these responses is an understanding of what they 
themselves are", said Pirsig in ZMM, "These fill the collective 
consciousness of all communicating mankind." Hence the "self" (the "I 
am" of Descartes) is an intellectual construct built socially, 
mirrors the cultural values that the bounded biological organism assimilates.

In the second we see that our bounded, unique experiences are always 
mediated by this social foundation. Our agency is not "free", but the 
thing to notice is that it can never be "free". Our affordance to act 
intellectually is always made possible, constrained and structured by 
the social consciousness assimilated by the bounded organism. If we 
see the potentiality of our ability to respond to DQ as both enabled 
and constrained by this social foundation, we stop looking at "man as 
individual" or "man as social" and instead see "man as social individual".

This is why, I believe, we are in agreement when you say "I disagree 
with Platt who seems to think that an individual with Descartes' 
qualities could have said the same in Medieval times .. or appear in 
an Afghan village tomorrow." What ANYONE at ANY TIME can say is both 
MADE POSSIBLE and CONSTRAINED by the social consciousness so 
assimilated (as well as the social-material circumstances of the organism).

[Bo]
Again the fallacy of intellect as a mere social appendix.

[Arlo]
Well that's a ridiculous accusation, Bo. "Mere"? "Appendix"? I'd no 
more say this than I'd say the biological body is a "mere appendix" 
of the inorganic level. What I gather from your accusation, though, 
is that you as well buy into this "war" between "the individual and 
the collective", and since I am doing more than proclaiming "glory to 
individual man on high", I must be demeaning the entire nature of 
anything outside of social conformity. This gets old.

So, again, let me reiterate my belief that "intellectual patterns" 
are MORE than the social patterns from which they originate, but are 
never separate from them. The "self", the intellectual pattern in 
question, is "more" than the assimilated social consciousness and 
"more" than the bounded experience of the organism, but represents a 
synergistic union of the two.

Also, rather than play talk-radio rhetoric games where "collective" 
is "evil and bad" and "individual" is "righteous and good", I think 
it far more valuable to see that ALL patterns on ALL levels are 
ALWAYS both individual and collective, that complexity within ALL THE 
LEVELS is built upon the collective behaviors of simpler patterns, 
and that applying the terms "individual" or "collective" is a matter 
of pragmatic focus. When my body is healthy, I prefer to think of it 
as an "individual body", when it is not, I am forced to recognize 
that it is a complex "collective" of "individual organs", themselves 
also complex "collectives" or "individual cells", etc. This applies 
to ALL static patterns, even the "self" pattern.