[MD] Problems with Intellectual control of Society

[John Carl]

On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 3:54 PM, <plattholden at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11 Oct 2009 at 10:47, John Carl wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 9:30 AM, <plattholden at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > > John]
> > > >
> > > > Then you and Pirsig are gonna have to explain to me the difference
> > > between
> > > > "source" and "cause".  You might as well say intellectual responses
> are
> > > > biological because they reside in a brain.
> > >
> > > Platt
> > > Using that logic you might as well say intellectual responses are
> > > inorganic because they depend on electrical impulses.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Right!  You get my point then.  That which we posit as a "source" is not
> the
> > stuff making up the pattern, but the higher thought which generates the
> > patterns out of stuff.  Biology is not the source of emotions.
>
> If you're saying thought creates patterns I agree. But then that's not
> saying much. That's what thought does. So your conclusion hardly
> follows.
>
>

I'm saying higher guiding DQ creates the lower patterns on every level.
 Biology does not create emotions, emotions create biology - when the
emotion of lust overtakes me, procreation occurs.  fer instance.






>
> Well, in Pirsig's scheme of four static value pattern levels plus DQ
> everything supposedly has a "home." He put emotions in the biological
> level. I find it "useful" to put them there, too. Also I think responses to
> "abstract and intellectual joys of aesthetic appreciation" are not
> emotional but indicators in pure experience that DQ is present.
>


I would postulate that responses *to* "abstract and intellectual joys of
aesthetic appreciation" are intellectual and objective,  while responses *of
* "abstract and intellectual joys of aesthetic appreciation" are emotional
and fundamental.

I would postulate that emotions then are a "higher" (closer to DQ) form of
mentation.  The classic first divide of experienced reality - the
romantic/classic split.


Who cares what Pirsig says?

Just kidding.  We all care what Pirsig says/said.  But...

Thought evolves.  It's supposed to.  What Pirsig said yesterday cannot
control what Pirsig says tomorrow or the guy would by trapped by his own
system and the system as given isn't a fundamentally static system.

I look at a lot of the MoQ as developed out of Lila and Lila's Child as
examples of how to use the insight of the fundamental basis of reality being
Quality, not commandments carved in stone which we all have to memorize and
repeat.  Agreed?

This is important.  A student who simply replicates the knowledge of the
teacher, cuts the teacher's virtue in half - a Buddhist maxim with which you
may be familiar.  In order for a teacher's virtue to accrue, the student
should surpass the teacher.

A key insight that might have helped dmb out a bit...



>
> I simply refer to other collections of things as groups. Societies I
> reserve
> for human groups. Makes sense to me given Pirsig's static levels.
>
>
But a group as a number of things is far different than an interrelated and
interacting number of biological beings evolving rules and codes for their
relationships.    Social rules transcend biological reality, and thus
qualify as a new way of patterning.   The herd circling to protect the young
is more than cells organizing themselves - it's living beings relating to
each other and to the external threat according to socially established
rules.    And if you take humans out of their complicated world and watch
them in small groups in nature, they are not that much different from the
animals.



>
> > I'd say Bo is right.  I'm confused.  Confusion is suffering.  Suffering
> is
> > good.  Suffering brings about evolution.
>
> Agree. He who isn't confused lacks humility.
>


True!  I feel good about being humble, and bad about being confused.  This
insight you offer helps me to make the jump from confusion to humility more
quickly.  Which is good - it eases suffering - which is bad - easing of
suffering engenders complacency - which is confusing - which keeps me humble
- back to good again.  Whew.  When can I get off this roller coaster?

Hopefully, not yet.



>
>
> > Here is the essence of my confusion,  you could take most of what has
> been
> > said about Quality, and apply it to "positive feeling".  The apprehension
> of
> > Quality as I experience it is a feeling of "good" - an emotion.  When I
> get
> > praise for something, that good feeling is the reinforcing agent of
> > intellectual evolution which encourages the intellectual behavior that
> > generated the praise.
>
> I also think of "bad" as the negative side of Quality, i.e., low Quality.
> But
> the presence of good, bad or neutral comes before any feeling, thought,
> or expression of any kind. It is the core of immediate experience.



I understand and agree.  But I think what I'm saying is that my first
reaction to this core of immediate experience is always some emotional
reaction that I subsequently analyze.   That is, all intellectual thought
has an emotional foundation - I have to care or I wouldn't even bother
thinking.  Caring is fundamental to Quality and caring is an emotion.




> Whether either or us is right or wrong is less important that the pleasure
> I feel in exchanging thoughts no matter from whence such pleasure
> emanates.:-)
>
>

Well said, Platt.  I'm gonna count that one as a plattaboy.