[MD] 42

[Dan Glover]

John,

On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 12:09 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for your response, Dan,
>
>
>> John:    Without my cells I would not be and without the men
>> > that build it, the city would not be.
>>
>> Dan:
>> As Phaedrus says, it's difficult to see that the "city" isn't the
>> substance of actual buildings and bricks. Rather, what binds the city
>> together--what creates it--are the social quality patterns that emerge
>> from the biological patterns of people.
>>
>>
> J:  Didn't Pirsig talk about this in the context of explaining the levels?
> that's the way I got it too. And I think it's an excellent analogy to
> compare a city and its people to a person and their cells.  There is a
> higher pattern that guides and makes a city - but it's not a process that
> happens independent of it's cells.  The people of a city and the cells of a
> body ARE the substance in which the waves and resonances of social
> patterning (and intellectual) move and have their being.
>
> But it's interesting to consider that the over all plan for the human,
> doesn't come from "on top"  It comes from it's DNA and like wise the city's
> overall plans comes from the dreams and ideas of men.

[Dan]
Isn't 'plan' an intellectual term?

>
>
>
>
>> Think of it this way: the cells that make up the structure of your
>> body have little to do with your personality, or the social and
>> intellectual quality patterns that comprise your life. Remember when
>> Phaedrus talks about the University and how it isn't composed of
>> bricks and mortar? Same analogy here.
>>
>>
>
> Um.. yes.  I've heard that story.  I'm well acquainted with Pirsig's works
> and have been active in discussing them for a long time.  I realize I
> differ in my opinions than some on this list and I realize that's a painful
> thing to some people, but I'm off the opinion that I'm here to do more than
> merely learn Pirsig's MoQ. (which I learned when I read it, btw)

Dan:
I wasn't trying to be condescending. Sorry you took it that way. If
you are acquainted with Pirsig's work then I'm not sure what we're
disagreeing about here other than your contention that SOM is in
charge of the social level, which in turn is composed of individuals.
In order to counter that argument it seemed necessary to go back to
the beginning.

It is great that you have nothing left to learn. Myself, I'm learning
all the time. I've been here a little while now but I am continually
amazed at how much more information there is that I never considered.
Along the way I have discovered that if my knowledge is built upon
faulty foundations of misunderstandings, then it is bound to fail in
the end. Thus, when I see someone going off on a wrong tangent, I do
my best to guide them in the right direction.

This isn't done in a minute. I'm not an especially sharp guy. I have
to work on these posts taking time out from other projects. It has
always been a bit frustrating to be taken like: um, yes. As if what
I'm saying is perfectly clear, when in fact if you realized what I'm
getting at, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

>[John]
> I'm here to fill it out and develop it further.  Usually a complete
> metaphysics is about a tome of up to 1000 words in deeply technical
> language - ZAMM and Lila were not that.   Beyond fleshing Pirsig's work out
> completely, I want to understand how to integrate it to the world of
> experience that I live in.  That's been an uphill slog, that last part so I
> also want to dig in and understand why.

[Dan]
The first clue that you might be wrong is Ham's appearance and his
proclamation that you've hit pay dirt. Ham has always had his own
agenda and that is not to further the MOQ. The second clue is David
Buchanan and his attempts at setting right your misconceptions.

It has always been my opinion that until I understand the foundations
of whatever project I'm attempting, I have no hope of improving upon
it. I don't mean to be critical, but from what I've seen and despite
your protestations, you do not understand the MOQ.

>
>
>
>> >
>> >
>> > Dan quoting lila:
>> >
>> >
>> >> "If "man" invented societies and cities, why are all societies and
>> >> cities so repressive of "man"?
>> >
>> >
>> > John:  Isn't it true that huge organizations like cities and corporations
>> > are repressive of some men (those on the bottom) and empowering of others
>> > (those on top)?
>>
>> Dan:
>> As one of the former ones at the top, I was as repressed as any of my
>> employees, perhaps more so. I had to keep feeding the tiger. I had to
>> keep juggling those balls. I knew if I dropped even one, a cascade
>> would ensue and wreck everything I thought was important.
>>
>>
> John:  I see what you mean.  It's hard for me to comment upon because I've
> avoided the jaws of the tiger.  It's pretty easy - you just stay poor and
> unregarded your whole life. :)
>
> But while it might be easier on our egos to blame some outward force
> repressing us, the real repression is psychological and from within.  The
> city is a reflection of a psychological malaise in the human heart.  It's
> also the cause of it.  Nuthin is so simple as to boil down to one cause,
> there's always more relations to be found the deeper we dig.

Dan:
I think that was pretty much what I said. Yes it is easy to stay poor,
sit in front of the tele, and drink a twelve pack every night. It's
hard to create something from nothing. I guess that's why most people
never bother. And I think a lot of those at the bottom believe the
ones at the top had it all handed to them, which in my experience is
far from the truth.

>
>
>
>> >
>> > Lila:
>> >
>> >
>> >> Why would "man" want to invent
>> >> internally contradictory standards and arbitrary social institutions
>> >> for the purpose of giving himself a bad time? This "man" who goes
>> >> around inventing societies to repress himself seems real as long as
>> >> you deal with him in the abstract, but he evaporates as you get more
>> >> specific." [Lila]
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >> Dan comments:
>> >> If I am reading this correctly, it means that there are no "competing
>> >> selves that make up the body of the Giant." When we begin to specify
>> >> the nature of the 'Giant' we see it doesn't really exist from a
>> >> substance point of view, only from a value-centric point of view.
>> >>
>> >>
>> > John:  Ok, then it's competing values.  Because there's certainly a lot
>> of
>> > competition to be on top.
>>
>> Dan:
>> There is competition everywhere.
>>
>>
>
> J:  I disagree most strongly and this is the heart of the problem I see
> with the current MoQ modality.  Seeing everything antagonistically is also
> a psychological reaction.  It's reading ego into everything else because a
> strong ego is doing the projecting.  The levels do not compete - they
> cooperate.  Are you at war with the cells of your own body?  Or do you
> cherish them and value them and mourn if some of them get cut off?  You're
> certainly not competing with them.
>
> Neither does the city compete with individual men.  The city values
> individual persons and protects them with laws and gets angry and defensive
> when a bunch of them die in a terrorist attack.  So the metaphor of the
> levels competing with one another doesn't integrate with actual
> experience.
>
> In fact, I say that all antagonism, all competition is purely 3rd level.
> It takes a perceived ego-greed against another perceived-ego in order the
> social patterning engine to run.  And it's not all antagonism either, but a
> push/pull of antagonism/cooperation.  When we come together and identify as
> a group or a nation, that makes a new entity, a new self that competes with
> other selves on it's level and by that I mean the social level is
> many-leveled itself.
>
> Even tho most people here think intellectual and social patterns argue,
> it's not technically correct.  Intellect is a lone, individual thing.
> Objective means basically "not just what other people say but what actually
> is".  That's the purpose of the 4th level - to individuate.  To step back
> from society and cause growth in individuation ad infitum.
>
>
> Whew!  I went a bitty overboard there Dan.  It's been a while, I guess I
> had some catching up to do in explaining myself.

Dan:
No problem, John. I appreciate what you're saying. Perhaps part of the
problem lies with the term 'individual.' Reading over what you wrote,
I get the distinct impression that you are (still) viewing the social
level as a collection of individuals. The social level in the MOQ
doesn't center around groups of individuals. It centers around value.

>
>
>
>> John:  we say that SOM
>> is the big problem but if the Giant doesn't operate from the
> subject-object
>> point of view then there is no problem with the giant.  That seems a
> faulty
>> conclusion to me.    And what mechanism creates social quality patterns if
>> not individual selves?  I'm sorry but this is just very confusing to me.
>
> Dan:
>
>> According to the MOQ, social patterns arise from biological patterns
>> but have little to do with them. In fact, they actively oppose them.
>> The driving forces of the social level are celebrity values of fame
>> and wealth. From the janitor who mops the floors to the CEO high in
>> his tower, everyone is seeking to have their voices heard.
>>
>> Praise costs nothing yet it empowers in ways that money could never
>> do. Praise is a form of celebrity value, like the applause the actor
>> hears after nailing a particularly difficult line. A raise in pay or a
>> bonus is wonderful but if it doesn't come with a pat on the back, it
>> means less. In fact, it means nothing.
>>
>> Notice that none of this has anything to do with subject/object
>> metaphysics.
>>
>>
> John:  Yeah, I just realize I've been avoiding that one too.  Let's save it
> for another day.

Dan:
Sure. We can do that.

>
>
>>> The system is real and yet non-physical.
>>
>>
>>
>> John:  In fact it could be said that everything is.   Real and yet
>> non-physical that is.
>
> Dan:
>
>> In the MOQ, inorganic and biological patterns are physical. We can
>> pick them up, examine them, put them under microscopes. Social and
>> intellectual patterns are non-physical. If you were to take two people
>> and examine them carefully, you couldn't tell which one was the CEO
>> and which one was the janitor.
>>
>>
> J:  Ok, sure.  Given the understanding that by "physical" we mean
> experience of a certain value.  Agree.
>
>>  Dan:
>>
>> The
>>> only thing that holds this system in place is our conception of it.
>>>
>>>
>> John:  I agree but wonder if you agree with me on the nature of this
>> "our".  Is it personal or communal to you?
>
> Dan:
>
>> Lila doesn't possess quality. Quality possesses Lila.
>>
>>
> John:  So *not* personal then.  Gotcha.  But like the epithet "physical",
> "personal" is an aspect of experience that has a certain value;  is it
> not?   But a personal possession of the system that holds us together would
> be a dreadful solipsism and one that holds us would be a dreadful
> absolutism so I like to thinks that Lila and Quality possess each other -
> in a kind of dance that is.

Dan:
Things get tricky when we begin to think in terms of self vs world. To
ask the question: Is it personal or communal, presupposes an
independent self separate and apart from the world of objects. The
term 'communal' also presupposes objects shared by a group of
individuals.

I gave the short answer because the long answer goes on and on.
Actually, I am still in the process of sorting that out. Someone asked
me today what I would do if I had free year. A free year! I might
consider that question and work up a suitable answer in the form of a
novel, perhaps even a series of novels.

>
>>>[John]
>
>> > I have a small problem with this word "competing" when applied between
>> the
>> > levels.  Isn't it true that values compete within levels but not so much
>> > between?  Pirsig said the levels were largely discrete - that means they
>> > don't have that much to do with one another.  It certainly obviates the
>> > idea of any widespread competing going on.
>>
>> Dan:
>> They are discrete and yet continuous. The whole premise of Lila is to
>> show how rigid social values (Rigel) hold the culture in place while
>> the biological degenerates (Lila) tear it apart. Then along comes the
>> intellectual folk (Phaedrus) who kick everything down the riverbank
>> and upend the whole shebang.
>>
>> The Victorian values of the late 19th and and early 20th centuries
>>
>
>
> John:  Modernism
>
>
>
>> were usurped by the intellectual evolution of society. The beatniks
>> and the hippies furthered the cause only to misunderstand the scope of
>> their movements.
>
>
>
> J: Post Modernism (reaction)

Dan:
I suppose I could look up the terms modernism and post modernism but
that is beside the point I was attempting to make.

>
>
>
>> Even today we see, particularly here in the US, the
>> fight between social values (creationism) and intellectual values
>> (evolution.)
>>
>> I hope this helps,
>>
>
> All agreed except I want to make a very important point using  Galileo's
> conflict with the church.  You see, all science was a part of the church in
> those days.  Monks were the scientists.    it was all God's creation in
> everybody's eyes - including Galileo's.  But the churchmen on Galileo's
> side were opposed by some more powerful churchman who were the
> conservatives and didn't like change.   It wasn't scientific
> intellectualism vs. social rule.  It was two different social groups
> warring - each with different interests.  The only way you can call the
> competition intellect vs. social, is that some social groups are more
> intellectually oriented than others.  But all competition is inherently
> social.

Dan:
Yes you're still viewing social patterns as groups of individuals. And
I know you've read Lila and discussed this many times, but until
you're able to make the shift from social as groups vs social as
value, you'll continue to argue that competition is social. It makes
sense seen from that vantage point. But that isn't the MOQ.

Thank you,

Dan

http://www.danglover.com