[MD] Sex, Rape and Law in a MOQ

[John Carl]

I agree Mark, so let's clear some of it up.  One snippet at a time and as we
feel like it.


> Yes, there is some confusion, but I think that it is perspectives not
> talking to each other.
>
>
[Mark]
> The fear of death is also an intellectual concept.  But now, I will
> contradict myself, and say that Survival can be attributed to the
> biological level.



John:

Here's how I'd clear up your contradiction:  Survival occurs automatically
on the biological level.  Worrying about survival takes an intellect.   My
heart doesn't worry, it just beats.  If my mind worries, my heart beats
faster.

Mark:

The ego presents itself as an intellectual construct.  We use such a
> construct to try to explain how we can feel better about our selves.
>

John:

I'd say the ego is a social-intellectual construct.  We think about self in
the context of otherness.  I thought Pirsig's point about Descartes and the
17th century French culture was right on. I think (about other) therefore I
am.

Mark:

>
> Now, I do like the concept of levels as analogies for meaning.  What I
> cannot understand is how one level can control the level below it.
>

John:

 I think of it thusly:  Biology takes inorganic material like sunlight and
certain materials and reformulates these materials into other compounds and
waste products.  Feces isn't exactly "inorganic" but it's not exactly
"alive" either.

Social relations such as sexual reproduction create more biological beings.
In one sense, even a predator's relationship with prey could be considered
"social"  So the level above is still controlling the level below as social
patterns control biological being.

Finally, only humans use intellectual patterns.  Things like laws and
beliefs are what form a society and hold it together, and sometimes tear it
apart.  Therefore, the analogy of the upper controlling the lower works all
the way through the evolutionary continuum.

I said "finally" but I didn't mean ultimately.  Ultimately, DQ is creative
of and controls intellectual (understood as expanded intellect) patterns in
an indefinable, but perceivable way.  And the closest thing to DQ in this
scheme, is Art.

May my peace of mind infect you!

John