[MD] Chapter 21

[Jan-Anders]

Hi Mark

I changed the subject into a new, hope you like it.

I am not sure if purpose is the right word. Hm. Different levels of moral?
Anyway while you're rereading the chapter maybe I contribute with this 
analogy: (originally from Strindberg)

Spiritualists are talking about the existence of a spiritual world as a 
contrary to the material world.
The invisible spiritual world which makes people take other decisions 
and act by it is as real as the wind, you cannot see the wind but you 
can see the trees being shaked around by it. Same thing with people. 
When you see them acting "unnatural", do things driven by "odd 
expectations", controlled by a force from "outer space" or the White 
House, it might be out from an intellectual Moral Value, or just the 
ethics described in the end of ch 21, instead of common sense at the 
social level.

This wind has force, pattern and value...

:-)

Jan-Anders

moq_discuss-request at lists.moqtalk.org skrev 2011-01-26 07.35:
> Hi JA,
>
> Yes, perhaps we have a different understanding of the intellectual
> level, as opposed to intellectualizing.  But, I have yet to read
> Chapter 21 again.
>
> Each level is defined by a transition into a new purpose, in my opinion.
>
> 1) inorganic level, purpose is to be the inorganic level (yes, a cop
> out, but I have not idea what the purpose of the inorganic level is)
> 2) Organic level, purpose is to create self reproducing life
> 3) Social level, purpose is to provide species with numerous participants
> 4) Intellectual level, purpose is to guide humanity.
>
> As a level, the intellectual level is not just intellectualizing, that
> happens at the organic level.  It is the movement of such
> intellectualizations.  As individuals in the organic level, we have no
> control over those movements, they have a consciousness of their own,
> which we can never fathom.  (If we could control them, we wouldn't
> have been stuck in the dark ages for so long, or believed everything
> Aristotle said.)  This would be similar to a cell of our bodies having
> no idea what our human consciousness is.  It would appear that the
> intellectual level is guided by morality, not by individual's morals.
> I have stated before that each level cannot control other levels.  We
> cannot control how atoms are arranged anymore than they can control
> how we think.  We can use such arrangement to build things we like,
> but there is no control over the inorganic level.  Horse and I
> discussed this for a while, and then dropped it.  So I do not take
> much to this whole control thing.  We can control things within our
> own level, perhaps.  It depends what the word control is controlling.
>
> But, I will read chapter 21 again to see if it is convincing.
>
> Mark