From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Sun Jul 13 2003 - 19:25:08 BST
Hi Platt,
> I have yet to find anyone who has made a clear distinction between
> intellectual patterns that belong in the intellectual level and those that
> don't. (Intuitive intellect is an oxymoron.). If there are intellectual
> patterns that don't belong, where do they go instead?
In my 'variant' MoQ, there is thinking (intellect of some sort) in each of the levels, according to
the dominant values (biological, social, eudaimonic), so a lion chasing a gazelle is *thinking*
about how to do so, and manipulates symbols in its brain in order to achieve that end (symbols not
derived from language in its case).
To my mind, therefore, now that the fourth level has come into existence, there is the potential -
just as Pirsig describes - for the higher levels to change the construction of the patterns at the
lower levels. So just as a tree will interact with the surrounding mineral environment (ie the soil)
and develop symbiotic patterns, so too will particular fourth level innovations affect the social
'soil' from which they were born. I think the clearest examples of those are the 'Bill of
Rights'/human rights developments, which I see as preserving the value of an individual in the face
of social opposition or control.
So - as part of the fruits of a eudaimonic personality - there may develop new intellectual
patterns. I have no problem with these patterns being absorbed into the 'culture' and functioning on
the social level. For me, the distinction between intellectual patterns is derived from the use to
which it is put. So a person brought up in the United States may relate to the Bill of Rights in a
wholly social fashion (ie this is a badge of my tribe and must be defended as such) - or conceivably
for biological reasons (imagine a fight with a foreigner that involved competition for the
attentions of a member of the opposite sex). There is no 'essence' of an intellectual pattern that
makes it something which operates only on the fourth level. That is why I think anything associated
with intellect/thinking breaks down as a MoQ level. (In contrast, an 'autonomous individual' can
only exist at the fourth level, and anything which is done by such an individual is at that level.
At least in theory!)
This is something I'm currently thinking through in more detail. Hopefully that will bear fruit in
another essay before too long.
Cheers
Sam
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
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