Gary and all MOQ Wilbereens:
Thanks for taking the criticism so well. Because of your reasonable response
we can continue the conversation, and that's how it should be. And even
though I still disagree with your reasons for breaking up holons, I'm
relieved to learn that you had a reason. Onward....
Gary's response: My main purpose in the comparison below is to show that I
do not think that Wilber and Pirsig's map are exactly the same. Which is
why I do think you have to chop up Wilber's map to fit into Pirsig's MOQ-E
map as given in Lila.
DMB:
No doubt about it. They're not exactly the same. If I had to pick just one,
I'd pick Wilber. His map is a summary of many maps that have been drawn by
researchers. Its a condensed depiction of a mountain of empirical evidence
generated by pretty wide range of scientific inquiry. In effect it shows
where all that data overlaps. He includes a series of charts in his INTEGRAL
PSYCHOLOGY that lists all the major contributors and shows how they line up
with his summary. Its an astonishing feat of synthesis. And in SES he
explains how many of these researchers tended to focus on a single
dimension. Some looked at interior individual development, while some were
looking at just the collective exterior or collective interior, etc. And he
was in the process of trying to figure out how it all fit together when he
first concieved the idea of a holon. In his attempts to reconcile all the
various data, he sort of "discovered" the need for this concept. It must
have been an "ah ha!" moment. My point? None of the researchers had access
to the idea of a holon and neither did Pirsig, but they all still fit into
Wilber's chart and there is no need to chop up the holons to make them
match. Its never going to be a perfect match, but that's ok.
Gary continues with: Pirsig purposely denies a social level to everything
but humans in Lila. Wilber has a 'social'-like level for everything.
Pirsig makes the Q-Intellect (level 4) exclusively human, while Wilber would
consider everything to have a sort of interior aspect which eventually
becomes Q-Intellect in humans.
DMB:
Wilber has a collective aspect for everything, but that's not the same as a
social level. Galaxies, for example, are collective, but they are not
social. As I understand it, when we describe animals or insects in terms of
human social organization, as in an ant colony, a school of fish or king of
the jungle, this is just an anthropomorphic analogy. I think that Wilber and
Pirsig both have no problem with the idea that human have evolved beyond all
other life forms and participate in levels of existence that animals simply
do not. Yes, the social and intellectual levels ARE exclusively human. No
problem. Also, I think that Pirsig's "B values precondition A" indicates
that even the most basic inorganic patterns have an interior dimension. And
Wilber's holon idea is a very good way to dissolve the subject/object split.
He is saying that EVERY THING is both a subject and an object
simultaneously. And hopefully this only shows further how well their maps
match.
Gary said:What I was trying to do with the list below is to get anyone who
was
interested to consider the two maps. I do think that Pirsig has no notion
of Holons, no idea of interior-exterior, no notion of all things having a
'collective'/ Social aspect. And thus Wilber's map gets chopped up when put
under the 4 tiered MOQ-E map of Pirsig.
DMB:
Right. Pirsig had no concept like holons. That's another good reason to
prefer Wilber's scheme. But rather than chop up holons to make them match, I
think its better to add holon to Pirsig. This has the advantage of expanding
the MOQ without contradicting it. Its not too difficult to do this addition.
Pirsig tends to focus on interior dimensions because he's presenting an
antidote to objectivity and materialism, but the other dimensions can be
infered. He tends to focus on morals and values and such, but there is also
plenty of reference to collective and exterior dimensions in his examples.
The great clash between socialism and fascism, for example, can be seen in
individuals and in nations. Individuals can subscribe to the values of those
ideologies AND we can see that some cultures are more inclined toward one or
the other. We can add the missing dimensions to what Pirsig says with
distortion. Hope this makes sense.
Thanks for your time,
DMB
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:25 BST