[MD] The "code of Art" is not a level

[skutvik at online.no]

Dear Steve

Must start by praising you and particularly this post as really going to 
the roots of the MOQ. What we really are here to probe, but 
constantly diverted from.
 
2 Oct.:

> I'm feeling a little irritable today, so while I have already
> attacked Bo and Platt, I'm also going to take on another anoying
> problem with people's use of Pirsig in taking teh "code of Art" idea
> to places Pirsig never intended.

Where I have sinned I'm not aware, but the following may show.

> The problem is confusion between what Pirsig means by a level and
> what he means by a moral code. A close reading of the quotes below
> my signiture where Pirsig talks about moral codes as opposed to
> levels shows that what Pirsig means by a "level" is  the collection
> of all patterns of value of a given type, and what he means by
> "code" is the way the conflicts between adjeacent levels are
> resolved in society.

A minor objection!. The inorganic vs biology  conflict is not resolved
in any "society", nor is the the social vs. biology conflict ("society
"is a level in its own right) but OK I see what you mean.   

> Pirsig says that "the isolation of these static moral codes was
> important.  They were really little moral empires all their own, as
> separate from one another as the static levels whose conflicts they
> resolved." How could a code be a level if the codes resolve the
> conflicts between levels?

> Pirsig goes on to explain that what is traditionally thought of as
> morality is only the social-biological moral code, the code that is
> used to resolve conflicts between social and biological patterns of
> value. Note that he calls this code the socio-biological code. It is
> neither the biological level nor the social level. Now the codes
> have to fit in somewhere since everything is a pattern of value or
> collection of patterns of value, so what type of pattern of value is
> the socio-biological moral code itself? It is a social pattern of
> value, but it is not the social level itself which is the collection
> of ALL social patterns of value.

I think this about codes (principally) different from the levels may 
reveal and resolve our "life-long" disagreement over the intellectual 
level, because there is no such difference, the upper level IS the 
code! Regarding the mentioned social-biological struggle it's plain 
that this struggle occurred as a result of the social level -  is the 
level!. There are no social patterns without simultaneously being  
"anti-biological", suppressing biological value IS what social value is 
all about. Pirsig supports this   

    "What the evolutionary structure of the Metaphysics of Quality 
    shows is that there is not just one moral system.  There are 
    many. In the Metaphysics of Quality there's the morality called 
    the "laws of nature," by which inorganic patterns triumph over 
    chaos; there is a morality called the "law of the jungle" where 
    biology triumphs over the inorganic forces of starvation and 
    death; there's a morality where social patterns triumph over 
    biology, "the law;" and there is an intellectual morality, which 
    is still struggling in its attempts to control society.   

See, each level is the code, note particularly intellect as "still 
struggling in its attempt to control society" I.e. there are no intellectual 
patterns without "anti-social" Its "objectivity over subjectivity" is (seen 
from inside intellect) modernity's battle with the past's superstition and 
ignorance which it calls "subjectivity". From the MOQ we see a 
greater context, but that's the gist of it.    

    Each of these sets of moral codes is no more related to the 
    other than novels are to flip-flops. 

A "set" is  the level and its morality, its "regarding" the lower level as 
the embodyment of evil.   

    What is today conventionally called "morality" covers only one 
    of these sets of moral codes, the social- biological code.  In a 
    subject-object metaphysics this single social-biological code is 
    considered to be a minor, "subjective," physically non-existent 
    part of the universe. But in the Metaphysics of Quality all 
    these sets of morals, plus another Dynamic morality are not 
    only real, they are the whole thing.

All very straightforward.     

Steve contd:
> Next he explains that what is understood as Human Right is the code
> that is used to resolve conflicts between intellectual and social
> patterns of value. 

Yepp, "human rights" is an intellectual pattern and you see it cannot 
be extricated from its purpose it is to suppress social value whose 
attitude regarding the human individual is that "it's" duty is to defend 
the common cause. As we see displayed by the islamists willingly 
blowing themselves up to defend the great Islam cause against 
Western Values (intellect) However the "intellect vs society" conflict is 
not soluble, its permanent as are all levels' struggle with its 
predecessor.   

> Then Pirsig goes on to describe the code of Art. he doesn't say that
> this code of Art is not a level since that goes without saying.

An intriguing issue. The code of Art may be regarded as the MOQ 
itself because it's neither static nor dynamic, rather IS the SQ/DQ 
context.    

> None of the codes are levels! 

Oh yes, steve, the levels are the codes. An your error here may 
contain the whole struggle about the intellectual level. It's not about 
"manipulating symbols" but all about suppressing social values.

> He says that the code of Art is not really even a code. Why not? It
> doesn't resolve conflicts between two types of static patterns like the
> other codes. It is the resolution of conflicts between dynamic quality
> and all static patterns. It is described not so much in terms of
> principles of how we should proceed as with the other codes but is
> instead described using such concepts as static latching, progress, and
> degeneracy--things we can only talk about after the fact, ideas that
> are not useful as a code to guide behavior like other moral codes. 

Finally we agree whole-heartedly. 

Thanks again Steve, this was really an event

Bodvar