[MD] A fly in the MOQ ointment

[Mary]

Hi Steve,

> Steve:
> I don't see any support in the above for your claim that a new type of
> pattern of value only becomes a new level when we can start to
> recognize new purposes that were not previously recognizable.
> 
> Mary:
> > If you are trying to tell me that the 4 Levels are nothing more than
> > groupings of similar things, then the power of the MoQ is diluted.
>  The
> > levels start to take on an arbitrariness that defeats the whole
> concept of
> > Levels.  Might as well introduce a taxonomic classification system.
> 
> Steve:
> The levels ARE groupings of similar things, but not "nothing more
> than."  They are part of an evolutionary hierarchy of value patterns.
> 
[Mary Replies] 
Yes!  An "evolutionary hierarchy of value patterns".  This is what makes one
level differ from another - what each "values".  Do we not agree?

> 
> Steve:
> This is a Bo-ism and not Pirsig's MOQ. You are assigning agency to the
> levels. The levels themselves don't value. The levels are labels for
> collections of patterns of valuation.

[Mary Replies] 
I guess I'm missing the "Bo-ism"?  Not sure what that means.  Perhaps we are
disagreeing about semantics here?  I agree that the levels are "groupings of
similar things" in the sense that they are the set of things (where, to be
clear, I use the term "things" very loosely) that share a common set of
values.  In the same way you could make an analogy that says Catholicism is
a "Level" of religious thought that shares a common set of values.  Does
that anthropomorphize Catholicism?  Would it be semantically incorrect to
say that Catholicism "values" X, Y or Z, or to say that the Social Level
does?  

 
> 
> Best,
> Steve

And to you,
Mary