[MD] Levels?

[skutvik at online.no]

Krimel

On 24 July you wrote:

> [Bo]
> Your understanding of the Quality Idea is so weak that it's hard to
> argue with you. 

> [Krimel]
> It is this kind of condescending crap that leads us onto the
> psycho-path, don't you think?

I will continue my reply to yours of the 22th. but first; I suspect you 
don't "buy" the MOQ basics at all and then it's no wonder you 
question the tenets derived from them. From SOM seen the level 
hierarchy is both secondary and an unnecessary complication, 
about THAT I agree. It follows that our exchange is a bit "old home 
inmates talking"-ish but you are intelligent, well read and well 
everything so I will condescend som more ;-).    

> Among the many reasons why I regard the "levels" as secondary is that they
> are not even remotely "discrete" as Pirsig claims. While the confusion is
> most obvious at the intellectual level, it exists even at the inorganic
> level which is not "discrete" from the biological level at least not in
> the way Pirsig frames it. All life on earth is based on carbon chemistry.
> In fact carbon chemistry is its own branch of chemistry. It is called
> organic chemistry. But Pirsig places it on the inorganic level. One of the
> problems some of our intellectually challenged brethren here on the MoQ
> have with evolutionary theory is how life begins. However and whenever the
> division between the living and the nonliving began it certainly involved
> organic chemistry and when we look at life itself on a molecular level we
> see no clear distinction between what is alive and what is inert.

Here we actually agree, my position is that if followed far (deep) 
enough all levels dissolves into the lower one and that this is in 
agreement with the MOQ about all levels being out of its parent 
and "living at home" at first. The discretion only occurs after it is 
has left home and regarding the inorganic-organic relationship 
already at the bacteria stage the dead/living distinction is clear.        

> The "distinction" between the biological and social levels is equally
> arbitrary and certainly not discrete. Social organization or the mutual
> interdependence of individual members of a species is an evolutionary
> strategy employed by many species in nature. From coral to ants and bees
> up through primates many organisms owe their survival to mutual support,
> division of labor and cooperative behavior. 

This is social value in its (biological) parent's service. Once 
Magnus Berg pursued the social term into absurdity and beyond, 
but once social value is "off on a purpose of its own" as a static 
level a totally different picture emerges.    

> Pirsig chose to specifically exclude all of this and include only
> humans at the social level. In so doing he misses out on the
> evolutionary function of social structures and on the origins of human
> social interaction that are so obviously rooted in primate social
> behavior. 

Well, as said, Pirsig may have gone lightly across some points, but 
the basics is sound. Let me think. Language has been a bone of 
some contention at this forum. Before I have maintained that it 
evolved "inside" the 3rd. level and became the social pattern that 
facilitated intellect, but perhaps it was the BIOLOGICAL pattern 
that brought existence to the social level? 

I believe language emerged about 50 thousand years ago and only 
then we may speak of a social level in the Quality sense, namely 
the notion of a reality beyond - transcending - biology. The old 
(social) myths did not have an afterlife in the spiritual sense, it was 
simply "business as usual". Again my pet (social) example the 
Semitic type religions - Islam in particular - that motivates its terror 
by the promise of a most concrete paradise with eating and 
copulating.      

> E.O. Wilson in developing his sociobiology in the late 70's pointed out
> that human social behavior is deeply grounded in biology. Among the
> evidence he presented for this was the striking similarities among all
> human societies. He claims for example that ants show a much greater
> variation in social structures than humans and few would deny that ant
> social behavior is entirely biological.

Again, this is society in biology's service.
 
> Beyond all this is the absurdity of thinking that a set of "levels" so
> blatantly focused on human beings can have "metaphysical" significance. As
> I understand it, metaphysics is the search for a set of principles that
> would apply to any form of "reality" not just ours.

This I don't get. The levels covers everything. The fact that the 
social pertains to the human race and as intellect is on top of that it 
also must include humans is no argument, but perhaps you can 
elaborate.  

> Having said all this I should point out that the "levels" are often
> useful. They are especially useful precisely where Pirsig got them from,
> the college catalog. The various areas of academia are often lumped
> taxonomically in this way. But on the whole I would say this particular
> set of "intellectual glasses" has taken way too much attention away from
> Pirsig's much more important insights regarding the interactions of DQ and
> SQ. 

About "taxonomically lumped this way". Somewhere Pirsig says 
the same, but the MOQ parts company with SOM at the very start 
by being patterns of value. P. spends much time in showing that 
inorganic patterns aren't SOM's "matter", thus 2nd. level patterns 
don't correspond to "life" .... etc. Most of all that the 4th. level 
patterns don't correspond to "thoughts". In going from SOM to 
MOQ one must always apply the SOL that corresponds to the 
Lorentz Equation needed to go from Newton's physics to 
Einstein's. Pirsig's original "transformation" (the two lower 
leves=objective and the two upper=subjective) fails at some very 
crucial points.

IMO

Bo