Re: MD Moral development

From: Denis Poisson (denis.poisson@ideliance.com)
Date: Sat Nov 10 2001 - 22:02:16 GMT


Hi, Bo !

BTW, thanks for nominating me for that Nobel thing... ;)

> Maybe it was just this
> passage (from LILA) that went so badly with me:
>
> > > "When societies and cultures
> > > and cities are seen not as inventions of 'man' but as higher
> > > organisms than biological man, the phenomena of war and genocide and
> > > the other forms of human exploitation become more intelligible."
> > > "This city, in its endless devouring of human bodies, was creating
> > > something better than any biological organism could by itself
> > > achieve."(Ch 16)
>
> "Higher organisms" seems to indicate that everything takes place
> inside the biological level, much like the trite wailing about national
> states as evil structures.

Yeah, I agree that these two excerpts are pretty bad, especially the last
one. It opens the door to all kinds of fascist interpretations by endorsing
human exploitation of other humans (morally inferior ones, of course).
Pirsig surely did not meant it in this way, but since we already have some
people believing that humans who act on biological impulses should be
eliminated like germs... you do the math.

> Many thinks highly of this idea believing
> that it is the essence of the social level of the MoQ (f.ex. the
> harangue that Oisin delivers) but this is NOT the way that Social
> Value is to be regarded. In LILA Pirsig repeatedly describes the
> improvement that this level means and what biological
> "vicissitudes" it releases existence from ... but all of a sudden it's
> a nightmare: Incongruous with the rest IMO.

Exact, it just doesn't "jive" with the rest of the MOQ, there is no harmony
in that interpretation. That why I think it's a low-quality one (whether or
not Pirsig meant it).

> OK, a city may be a
> social pattern, but New York City least of all a typical such, so
> dominated by intellect that the social part is almost invisible.

Well, I cannot go into details here, but I have this idea that the levels,
while useful divisions, create a false impression that "things" can always
be filed into one of them, with no other connections to the other levels
than the "machine-code" thread. I do not believe that's right. "Things",
like cities, are often composed from more than just one type of patterns.
Cities, for example, consist of a location in space-time, in which we can
find inorganic infrastructures, which are used and maintained by organisms
(humans). These latter are governed by complex behaviours, which are
themselves regulated by customs and laws. These, in turn, can be criticized
by individuals, who will then try to make some change in laws and customs,
which will be enforced by biological acts (like the use of force, if need
be). Finally, those might then need to change the inorganic infrastructures
to adapt them to these new behaviours, etc.

While such a description of the dynamic exchanges that make a city a city
might be flawed, incorrect, or partial (and probably is guilty of all three
charges, so don't consider it an "official" MOQite description of a city),
it hints at the complexity of the interaction of levels in a "thing".

> All in all the NYC stay spawned many sombre thoughts with Phaedrus -
> obviously he is no big city lover.

There is something deshumanizing in big cities, I've often noticed that
(remember that I live in Paris suburbs). It's like the huge number of people
there means that you are insignificant : what you think is insignificant,
what you do is insignificant, what happens to you is insignificant. When so
many people around you do not know you or care, the social "glue" rubs off,
leaving you out of touch with your fellow humans. You're not only alone in
your SOMish head, you're alone, period. While this also means more freedom
from social mores and intellectual diktats, it is still a scary experience.

>
> The fascist deduction from the Giant metaphor eludes me
> completely, and the "consciousness" of the various levels (from P's
> remark about ......an intelligence of its own) seems to be a great
> hang-up with John. I must point to my effort to oust this arch-SOM
> notion from the MoQ, it's poison there and possibly the reason you
> never seem to get it right ;-)

There goes my Nobel prize.... :-(

As said by Wilber, John and I, there is no notion of a "consciousness" at
the social level. How can behaviours have a consciousness ? The notion that
behaviours originate from organic nervous systems does not imply that these
behaviours share the organisms "animal intelligence" (different from
Q-Intellect, you'll remember). Because your computer can compute bits
doesn't mean that this email you're reading can, does it ?
But it is also ridiculous to claim that your computer cannot compute bits,
or that no animals have memories and capabilities for deductive reasoning.
This intelligence, as lowly as it might seem, can fall under the umbrella of
a wide-ranging term as "consciousness". Or should a law be passed against
this word ? ;)

I'm actually writing a post that will address your concerns a bit more
directly, and I'll post it as soon as I can. It's titled "Has Pirsig
invented a new disguise for SOM ?"...

On that ominious tone, I'll now say goodbye...

Denis

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