[MD] MOQ levels

[Steve Peterson]

>

Hi Platt:

>>>>> Platt:
>>>>>> Patterns of thought are often social patterns as Pirsig explains:
>>>>>> "And, as anthropologists know so well, what a mind thinks is as
>>>>>> dominated by social patterns as social patterns are dominated by
>>>>>> biological patterns and as biological patterns are dominated by
>>>>>> inorganic patterns." (Lila, 12)
>>>>>
>>>>> Steve:
>>>>> Pirsig is not saying that some thoughts are social patterns any  
>>>>> more
>>>>> than he is saying that some animals are inorganic patterns. He  
>>>>> is  saying
>>>>> that ALL thoughts are based on social patterns as all social   
>>>>> patterns
>>>>> are based on biological patterns and so on.
>>>
>>> Platt:
>>>> Exactly. You cannot separate thought patterns and consider them  
>>>> independent
>>>> of social patterns as you seem to suggest.
>>>
>>> Steve:
>>> Thought (intellectual) patterns are not independent of social  
>>> patterns. I
>>> have never suggested that.
>>>
>>> I only corrected your statement that "patterns of thought are  
>>> often social
>>> patterns." Patterns of thought are intellectual patterns  
>>> regardless of who
>>> holds the idea. Ideas may support some social patterns or be  
>>> antagonistic to
>>> some social patterns but they are still ideas, not social pattern
>>> themselves.
>>

Platt:
>> We disagree on this. There are plenty of static social ideas  
>> around IMO,
>> including the idea that religion can tell us something about about  
>> reality
>> and morality that reason can't.  But, let it rest.

Steve quotes RMP from LC:
"45. After the beginning of history inorganic, biological, social and  
intellectual patterns
are found existing together in the same person. I think the conflicts  
mentioned here are
intellectual conflicts in which one side clings to an intellectual  
justification of existing
social patterns and the other side intellectually opposes the  
existing social patterns..."

All justifications are intellectual patterns (as I was arguing that  
using faith as justification for belief is an intellectual pattern  
which I have further argued is a dangerous one). Your example of "the  
idea that religion can tell us something about about reality and  
morality that reason can't" is an intellectual justification of a  
social pattern rather than a social pattern itself.

Regards,
Steve