[MD] Consciousness a la Platt

[Heather Perella]

> Ron:
> Hello SA, Thanks for your comments. What I see is specific 
> characteristics being used to universally define the
> levels.
> I argue that all the universe is not western culture.

SA:  This is EXACTLY why I think Pirsig WAS writing a book about Amerindians.  He was into anthropology, and during the very first class of different anthropological courses ('member I have a degree in anthropology; only pointing out this is from experience I know this) the teacher tries to 'shock' the students out of their usual western cultural frame of mind and to help them and encourage them to think about how other people with different cultures live on this earth and have throughout time.  It was a key point by many anthropology teachers to show that some of the formulas and interpretations that the students made from time to time were narrow and very ethnocentric.  Not only does western culture have difficulty thinking about other cultures, though often forget they even are there, but also they think everybody should be like them and if their not, well, their low species.  I still think how the American Museum of Natural History in New York City
 in the late 1800's and early 1900's had African Pygmies in cages to be goo-d and awe-d at.  The intellectual patterns still exist.  I mean watch the news.  People get mad when they hear that China is becoming more powerful than the U.S. economically (now some of that is political, the human rights and political stuff, but a lot of it is pure power greed).  What about Japan?  People in the U.S. still have a problem and deny that Japan can have a different intellectual pattern and still do what the U.S. does and sometimes even better (and yet, they still sustain their old traditions for those old traditions are dynamic; it would be an interesting study).

Ron:
> I think that's an accurate statement, I think it is
> highly
> inaccurate to judge the universe by our cultural standards.

SA:  It's hard to stomach these imperial lurkings.  That's what we're seeing at times.  It is a worldview that simply ignores other intellectual patterns and by recognizing its' own only, then children grow up in this culture not knowing how to point to where Thailand is on a map.  


Ron:
> It's very characteristic of SOM.
> Do we really want to bring that into the MoQ definition
> of the intellectual level?
> It defeats the whole enterprise of a Quality metaphysics.

SA:  I whole-heartedly agree.  The whole point of a quality metaphysics is to rid what so many intellectuals have found to be a hot stove, but I for one, didn't know where to start and how to communicate on such a large scale, but it seems Pirsig noticed this over twenty years ago and he's been able to mole deep into the ivory tower of philosophical armchairs where if they could only have gotten out of their chairs and walked around a bit, they probably would have noticed their worldview is off from what's really happening in the field.  Thanks Ron.  I really am glad you've got this gumption.  I'm enjoying this tremendously.


SA