LS Re: The four levels


Magnus Berg (qmgb@bull.se)
Wed, 15 Oct 1997 12:34:03 +0100


Hi Platt

Platt wrote:
> To say "it would be immoral to judge according to one's personal static
> level ladder" is itself a judgment based on your personal ladder.
> According to your view, your judgment that "it would be immoral" is
> immoral.

Granted, so, we have the situation Doug exemplified the other week:

"Everything I say is true.
The previous sentence is false."

> The senses are static bio-patterns. Data changes but the senses remain the
> same, copying themselves over and over again. We live in a world of
> processes, not paralysis.

Yes, yes and yes again!

I'm curious, are you saying that this copying - this process that keeps
static patterns the same between QE:s - is equivalent to biological
reproduction?

> Yes, I take the examples in "Lila" literally. I take everything Pirsig
> writes literally. I don't think he's kidding us. I don't think he says one
> thing and means another. When he says "biological" he means "biological,"
> not "organic." Only rarely does he use organic as a synonym for biological,
> but he uses "culture" as a synonym for "society" many times.

I just don't think it's fair to take written words too literally.
First of all, the intellectual pattern becomes static as soon as
it's printed as words. And second, language is limited and
ambigous.

> All levels are constantly evolving. We are not the end of biological
> evolution nor is society or intellect permanently fixed. Even individuals
> are evolving. Pirsig makes that clear when he talks about Lila's problems.
> And where you have evolution, you have DQ.

I don't think the *levels* are evolving as such. I rather think that
more *patterns* of the level are emerging, but I guess that's what
you meant.

> By "artificially constructed" I assume you mean man-made as opposed to
> nature-made.

Yes.

> I agree that DQ does not affect completed artifacts as such.
> In a broad, abstract sense, artifacts contain all levels. But they are
> primarily inorganic. The argument, however, is tangential to the MOQ which
> is "an inquiry into morals," not the composition of man-made objects.

I'd place the core of our disagreement here. We've approached the MoQ from
different directions. But that's ok, that's what it's supposed to do. Join
seemingly different people around the same core.

Your approach is homing in on the "inquiry into morals" part, whereas mine
aims for the "metaphysics" part. And this metaphysics part has very much
to do with the composition of man-made objects, as well as non man-made
objects.

        Magnus

--
post message - mailto:skwok@spark.net.hk
unsubscribe/queries - mailto:diana@asiantravel.com
homepage - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4670



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:42:05 CEST