[MD] e: Reading & Comprehension

[Mary]

Hi Arlo (and also in this thread, Marsha, Bo, DMB, Andre),

I very much like your evolutionary explanation 

> I think evolution within the MOQ's
> structure occurs not as a steady uphill line, but
> as a series of unexpected leaps that no one sees
> coming, followed by a time where stability is
> resought. This occurs within levels, in the case
> of evolutionary jumps in complexity (say amoebas
> to dolphins), and also in the case of an entirely
> new "paradigm" emerging (biological patterns from inorganic patterns).
> 

There is a difference between SOL (subject-object logic) and SOM
(subject-object metaphysics).  I'm no historian, but think the emergence of
SOM is what Pirsig sees in Socrates' and Aristotle's time.  

SOL is as old as the Biological Level and germinated from simplistic
survival thoughts through rudimentary society on up to highly complex social
and religious ideas until it finally outgrew even the Social to achieve the
Intellectual Level we see expressed as SOM. 

All the levels appear to be static, but they are not.  They continue to
change, though the lower ones are more statically fixed. For them change is
more constrained by the weight of existing static patterns.  I'm thinking
particularly of the Inorganic here. In the Biological, we do see change at a
noticeable rate because one of its premier static patterns is DNA.  A static
pattern defining a pathway for change.

Where the controversy seems to lie is in saying that the Intellectual Level
is defined by symbol manipulation.  This pattern is very old and has existed
since the Biological in, albeit, much more simplistic form than now.  It is
necessary for the existence of the Social Level in its entirety too.  It is
too broad and general a category to ascribe to the Intellectual Level alone
and invites misunderstanding when the Intellectual Level is defined that
way.  

But that is only one reason I dislike that definition.  The levels are
discrete sets of patterns of values.  You cannot say that symbol
manipulation is the definition of the Intellectual Level without denying
that it existed - indeed was a major requirement of the Social.

Another point of contention arises from the definition of SOM.  You can take
out a piece of it from here and there and say "that is SOM" and you would be
right, but that is not all of it.  You could say SOM is science, or SOM is
the questioning of established religions, or other things.  It is those, but
at its base it is a set of patterns of value that deny that patterns of
value exist.  It is the denial of Quality and the elevation of the
Subject/Object split as the primary empirical reality of the world.  Do any
on this forum disagree with that definition?  It is a backlash against
established beliefs that formed Societies for thousands of years.  It is
basically the attitude that it is better to question established beliefs
than not, tempered with the belief in subject/object supremacy.

Arlo, what I like most about your evolutionary explanation is how you show
that none of the levels are incapable of change.  This goes for the
Intellectual Level as well.  It is my thought that as it sits now, SOM is
the foundational belief upon which the Intellectual Level is based.  But, as
with DNA in the Biological, that foundation contains the seeds for its own
alteration.

The MoQ is a new paradigm struck from the old.  It explains the world in a
way different from SOM, yet uses SOM principles to do that explaining to us.
If and when it becomes understood as valuable to some critical mass, it will
achieve a static latch of its own within the Intellectual Level that can
drive it beyond SOM, in the same way that DNA has driven life forward from
bacteria to dolphins.  At its base, though, it still relies on the basic SOM
attitude that established Social beliefs should be questioned.

 
Thank you,
Mary