Hettinger (hettingr@iglou.com)
Wed, 1 Oct 1997 04:08:53 +0100
Hi James!
General remarks and interpretation are good. One phrase in particular
jumped out at me--"Impulse turns into manifestation." Somehow it sparkles,
highlights a piece of the process. I have it hanging on the wall now.
james.mccabe wrote:
Each level depends absolutely on the level below it (as a whole) and
> feeds off it like a parasite, or a rebellious slave turned master,
> always seeking to achieve a sort of independence by broadening its
> application - it liberates itself by finding alternatives and making
> choices between them.
I like this analogy.
> The higher quality arises from the "need" of the lower form, but then
> starts to exhibit aberrations. For instance, if we say that existence
> over time is the need of the inorganic level, organisms fulfill this
> need
> by the trick of reproduction, but it looks strange in comparison to the
> values of cohesion, size, etc. otherwise dominant. Moving up a
> level according to Richard Dawkins, the survival of the gene is
> the ultimate value of biological evolution: but soon you get the deer
> antlers that Hugo spoke of, and you need to explain things on a social
> level because they seem "un-fit" on the lower level. And finally, it is
> clear that a lot of intellectual behaviour appears aberrant at the
> social level, even if it is finally justified.
>
> Once the higher level is established it then turns on the lower levels
> and starts to influence them - the intellect, for instance, "mediates"
> the other levels means of tools both inorganic and cultural. Impulse
> turns into manifestation. For example, social conflicts throw up
> economic theories which begin to influence society, and whose effects
> are felt right down to the inorganic spinning machine. History shows
> that individual experiments (mere chance from a social perspective)
> throw up inventions (e.g. the steam engine, the Web)
> which had not been thought of much before they were invented - in
> other words, technology drives society as much as society drives
> technology, owing to the powerful if uneven development of intellect
> in recent history.
>
This is a clearer example of "mediation" than some of mine.
> Reading over Pirsig convinced me that the struggle for the independence
> of intellect from society began around the time of the Greek
> Cosmologists. It was the emergence of what I call "declarative thought"
> from "procedural thought". Procedural thought knows of ways and means;
> declarative thought knows of existence and models. The first man who
> made
> that remarkable leap of abstraction was the man who went from "This is
> the way to do it," to "This is the way it is." Just who that was is a
> matter for philosophologists.
>
This is interesting. My gut feeling (and this is not a criticism), would
have been that "declarative thought", as you define it, would have been
first, followed by "procedural thought". If you are right, then perhaps it
is my habit of looking at life from the perspective of a person who has been
raised in a culture in which the intellectual level is accepted, one in
which the naming seems primary. In past times, before the intellectual
level was firmly established and its effects disseminated throughout the
social level, the way social man "learned" was by doing the accepted thing,
without thought or intellectual evaluation. So that makes "the way to do
it" come before the abstraction.
That's what you said. I just had to work my way around to it. Wow!
> The rational thought system of Western civilization is
> very stable, with a proven record of supporting human/social needs,
> but it is not so successful at representing individual emotions:
> hence the need for Art. In general we are still very much in the
> middle of the struggle between the social and the intellectual: for
> instance it is still more common to condemn intellectual theories
> because they encourage bad social practises than it is to condemn
> social practises because they reflect poor judgement.
>
Yes.
> The higher level cannot altogether forget the lower level it stands
> on, any more than a diplomat can permanently forget the people he is
> supposed to represent. For instance, our tools have given us great
> control over nature, but we could not continue this discussion without
> the indulgence of the sun. Another example: our intellectual edifice
> of science, mathematics, and literature has had great successes, but it
> was developed in societies on just one side of the world; which is
> why, I think, Diana gets a headache when Westerners talk about
> Eastern society; because Western thought is not fully representative
> of the social level worldwide. In relation to the development of quality
>
> I would have to disagree with Bo when he says, "I don't think one
> MORALITY can make much impact on the next higher MORALITY" (Bo's caps).
> The higher values arise from the lower values and are, alas,
> conditioned by them.
>
Although I think Bo is talking about something valid that I'd like to get a
handle on :-), I'm going to agree with you here. I also think it is
possible for a lower morality to affect the higher. For example, the AIDS
virus is a development in the biological level that has profoundly affected
the higher levels.
<thinking...reconsidering>
In bringing up the virus, I was trying to think of something that developed
naturally within the biological level, not as a result of mediation by
something in another level. Now I am wondering whether that was an
appropriate example. Is the AIDS virus something that developed within the
natural processes of the biological level? It's a genetic mutation,
right?. Maybe that's not biological process at all, but an example of how
DQ can affect inorganic patterns directly, able to work within pockets of
balance within the biological patterns. Doug?? Diana??
> In considering the progress from one level to the next, it is tempting
> to think of a final Ideal State, in which material, biological, and
> social values would be present in their totality, but would
> only be signs in a cosmic show. Theists will think of God; another try
> is Hegel's Absolute - "the unity of the Subjective and Objective Idea" -
>
> thought thinking about itself from Bertrand Russell's description. One
> must also consider the possibility that levels beyond the intellectual
> will evolve.
> _
It may be happening now, and any new levels would be expected to be
faster-moving, closer together, and less distinct. Perhaps it is our own
human grounding in the social/intellectual realm that makes it seem so.
IMHO. (Sorry. Any moment now, I'll be drawing more pictures in the air.
I have this strange urge to do that. I keep thinking that someday I'll see
a diagram of four-dimensional mathematics describing some natural process
and I'll be able to say THAT'S IT! THAT'S HOW IT WORKS AT ALL THE
LEVELS! Wouldn't that be something? )
Back to reality. :-)
> <snip more of James' overview>
It's nice meeting you.
Maggie Hettinger
http://members.iglou.com/hettingr
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