[MD] Marsha's (s)OL: the question

[John Carl]

Ok Mark,

Like you I am here to learn and grow through dialectical exchanges of high
quality.  So I feel comfortably congruent enough with your own aims and
goals to just jump in to your exchange with Bo and pick out the things I
want to comment upon.  M. Scott Peck's greatest #1 rule in communication
(paraphrased) is "speak when DQ moves you and DON'T speak when DQ doesn't."

So I dive in as the spirit moves and hope you don't mind.


  The intellect is
>
> indeed limiting, blocking out 99% of experience, but
> necessary for complex social behavior.



I think a good analogy for understanding the proper role of intellect is the
one Pirsig draws with "scientific method".  Its what you crank up and use on
reality when your really need it or want it.


Intellect is empowering.  Reliance upon intellect alone is limiting.  It is
the reliance that is limiting, not the intellect.  The intellect is great!
 Wonderful tool, just like (probably identical with) the scientific method.

And I agree it is good to use intellect when figuring out complex social
behavior.  Like the geeky kids (me and my friends)
sitting on the sidelines at the school dance and analyzing high school
cliques and power struggles.  But there comes a time when you just gotta
stop thinking and dance and using intellect exclusively gets in the way of
that.

I was talking to my brother last night, who's been going through marital
trouble with the same woman for the last 25 years, and he says to me, "I
just wish I could get past all the male-female drama and focus on important
spiritual issues."

He said this to me because he was talking about how much he loved Lila, but
he had never finished it because his wife would seem to go into some kind of
snit and throw him off track.   I laughed and told him, "Dude!  That's what
the book is about!  Pirsig started out wanting to make a book about the
Indians and gets meets some woman on his boat that throws all his
intellectual plans and schemes and organizations out the window."

And yet, in the end pulls it all together for the ultimate truth is we never
get over the woman troubles.

Well... I have, but that's just me and only cuz I lucked into marrying the
wonderful Lu...

 sidetrack of my own... back to the intellectual voyage!



> It is not necessary to create levels as such, since they seem
> to confuse the situation  This is not to say that
> the expression of a hierarchical existence does not convey
> the sensibility (feeling within you) that you are trying to convey.
> I am looking for an easier expression of Quality and how it
> manifests.  Is it possible to explain Quality without levels?
>


Oh my yes.  In fact, the expression of levels of reality is an example of
metaphysical speculation based upon the realization of Quality as the
ultimate foundation of everything.  In other words, It's the best
explanation we can come up with for what is presented to us, but this 'best'
is that provisional best which DQ generates in all times and contexts.

However, I would argue that these categorical demarkations ARE the best
explanation and thus they ARE part and parcel of the MoQ, which is also a
codified system.  You gotta have a codified system or you don't have a
metaphysic.

Out of the synthesis of different ideas about the MoQ, arise the realization
of DQ pointing to that which is best about each and thus the MoQ evolves.

I've cast a lot of disparagement upon a strict hierarchical interpretation
of the levels, but I would not toss out the 4 levels - I point to them as a
fundamental proof that "something else" is needed to explain the plain
evidence of evolution - that reality does indeed climb a ladder of
statically latched DQ with a higher dynamic to each level and within the
levels themselves pointing to a morality that is tied to the inherent moral
structure of the cosmos.

Let me rephrase my point, it's new enough (to me anyway) to need restating.
 DQ evidently creates a hierarchy of patterned reality in four stages;  a
hierarchy of patterned reality in four stages does NOT create DQ.  Thus a
common mistake I see here on this forum of thinking something is better just
because it's of a higher level dominating a lower.

This isn't always good.  Good is the best definition of what is good, and
the levels are ways of intellectualizing the good we experience in the
moment.

Whew!



>  I do rely on
> simple dialogue with those who seem to have a grasp.
>

You and me both, bro.  It's the "seeming" sometimes that can be tricky...

John the oft unseeming