Magnus Berg (qmgb@bull.se)
Mon, 6 Oct 1997 11:33:48 +0100
Diana McPartlin wrote:
>
> First. Several posts recently have discussed the relationships between
> the levels. Bodvar summed it up saying that each levels raison d'etre
> is to free itself from the level below. A few others have pointed out
> how the levels depend on each other. I agree with all this but I just
> want to point out that these are characteristics or descriptions of
> the behaviour of the levels. They cannot be considered definitions of
> the levels. As Maggie pointed out there may also have been/be other
> types of value that have attempted to break away from the parent level
> but have been unsuccessful.
Descriptions of the behaviors of the levels are as good as any other
approach to definitions of the levels. As long as an observation can be
categorized into one level using these descriptions, I think it's better
than no descriptions.
> Second I want to answer Magnus' point that even if we can't define
> individual phenomena we should at least be able to define the types of
> phenomena that belong to each level. But the only thing that all the
> phenomena that belong to the biological level have in common is that
> they are biological value. Same for the other levels.
This sounds way too mystic to me. So, are we just going to sit around
a ring, smoking pot, and saying: "Look, a bird! That's biological huh?"
Pirsig split everything (every thing that is) into four categories. The
reason (I think) was to enable us to intellectualize what we *can*
intellectualize and leave the rest to DQ, without feeling inadequate
because we can't grasp DQ.
> You can come up with definitions of sorts eg Biological value are
> those phenomena that are experienced biologically. But obviously that
> doesn't help much. You can also come up with synonyms of sorts eg
> Biological value is life or biological value is that which propagates
> life. But then you just have to define life...
That's why I never use neither biology nor life in my attempts
to define the second level.
> To recap, I believe Bodvar agreed with me that an artificial, say,
> lung in a human body was biological value, even though it may also be
> considered inorganic value.
Patterns of all levels still have all attributes from the lower levels.
I have mass, colour, gravity etc., although I'm not daily considered
to be inorganic.
> From this I see no reason why a warm coat,
> good pair of shoes or indeed an ergonomically designed chair cannot
> also be considered biological value.
If you really mean this, we're really starting to understand each other.
A human with a warm coat and a good pair of shoes is a society (a
composition of organic patterns) that can better withstand cold
weather than a human without them. Therefore, the coat and the
shoes (and the human) are organic patterns to that society.
> I guess what I'm really getting at, though, is whether biological
> value is something akin to "life" or something akin to "those
> phenomena that propagate life".
Now *you* are doing it. You can't define something in terms of
something else that is equally undefined. I know you're not
trying to actually define it, but just to have a general idea
or something. Those alternatives both refer to life, and a
decision on what alterantive to choose depends on what you
regard as life.
Magnus
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