[MD] The 4th. level's two interpretations. Part 2

[John Carl]

Ian, Bo,(and Matt et al)

I had a troubling thought, reading through these arguments and
counter-arguments, regarding the consciousness of levels.

The individual is as unaware of the self-consciousness of evolving 3rd-level
patterns as a cell is unaware of the ideas in a brain... right?

So how does this unconsciousness suddenly become conscious of those
 evolving 4th level patterns that transcend historical context?

What I'm seeing here in this formulation,  is that if you have a statically
ascending hierarchy that leaps over individual awareness when the social
level patterns transcend individuality, then all of a sudden is contained
entirely within an individual brain, then your smoothly ascending hierarchy
is full of contradiction.

A confusion that arises in our brains when our brains try and think about
mind, no doubt.  A confusion that grows exponentially with each individual
pov contributing its own ideas about the elephantine 4th level.




On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 12:57 AM, Ian Glendinning <ian.glendinning at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Bo, (and Matt et al) a few points ...
>
> You quote (yet again, for the umpteenth time)
>  "For purposes of MOQ precision let's say that the intellectual level
> is the same as mind...."("Lila's Child" page 64, annotation:#25)
> Yes, we know, Bo, but he says "let's say" ... he's thinking out loud
> in a discussion here ... it is hardly definitive of his
> thought-through thesis.
>
> Matt had said,
> "... deriding the fact that we'll do what is reasonable even when it
> isn't any good?"
> I know Matt has a thing about Pirsig being "pejorative" about existing
> philosoph(olog)ies, hence his "deriding", but this is the crucial
> point.
> Reasonable vs Good (and what intellect has to do with this) - see later.
>
> And again Bo, you said, this time to Matt - but condemning us all as usual
> ...
> "But like most you seem unable to fathom what the intellectual level
> is, namely when the individual's perception became SUBJECTIVE and what
> s/he perceived became OBJECTIVE meaning that this distinction is
> existence's fundament."
>
> Became. Notice.
> OK, I'm OK with that, it's an evolutionary narrative we're talking
> about here, and this is simply Pirsig's definition of the intellectual
> level arising, not anything fundamental about intellect per se. And
> the key point is the (erroneous) reification of the S/O split as
> somehow fundamental.
>
> I actually think you are onto something with one point here, but you
> miss the difficulties others are raising.
> Yes the social level also involve(d/s) patterns of subjects and
> objects - all that the step to the SOMist intellectual levels
> indicates is the point where the objective half of that split got
> taken to be fundamental reality from the subjects perspective. I have
> never had any disagreement with you over this interpretation of the
> MoQ levels. My problem is that it does not tell us anything useful
> about the hierarchical goodness of social and intellectual patterns in
> real life - now and in future. If anything it implies this kind of
> intellect is always worse than any social pattern - the Platteral
> anti-intellectual stance - which is clearly too simplistic, as well as
> useless - the "crucial" point above. It doesn't help us say how and
> when social (or intellectual) is better than intelectual (or social) -
> when is reasonable also good (or not) ?
>
> (I'm less interested than others in debating the eastern/western
> mythology of when the Greeks or others before or after, actually
> introduced that error - since it is clearly much more complex than
> something Plato wrote one day - all ideas evolve, co-creatively, over
> time in many minds, individual and collective, intellectual and
> cutural - and philosophical - traditions and mythologies. They're in
> safe hands with Dave, and Matt et al.)
>
> Regards
> Ian
>
> On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 6:34 PM,  <skutvik at online.no> wrote:
> > To complete my dispute with Matt of 26 Oct. I'll start with his last
> > paragraph.
> >
> > Matt:
> >> I guess the above rhetorical question about (1) is what I've never
> >> understood, ...
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