THE CHICKEN AND EGG SOCIETY VS INTELLECT QUESTION
Keith:
I'm not sure that the definitions or evidence Pirsig
gives us in *Lila* are strong enough to support the supremacy of intellect
over society on its own, though I feel intuitively that this is the correct
ordering.
More Keith:
While the cyberneticists place the social track at a higher
level than the cognitive track, they acknowledge afterward that
"communication and cooperation between organisms (social track) takes place
*before* rational thought (cognitive track) emerges, and is in a mutual
positive feedback relation with that cognitive transition."
Me: Yes!
The word "society" seems to be causing us a lot of problems here. I think
we all agree (more or less) on what intellect is, but thusfar society has
been discussed only in terms of humanity. There are many species that have
a society that was not a development of their intellect. Ants immediately
come to mind. The structure of ant society did not arise from ant
intellect, but rather from the biological level. I guess someone will now
want to argue that ant "society" is not a society at all! I don't think
Pirsig was confining himself to human society in his discussions.
Keith again:
I think this explains exactly the kind of confusion we've been experiencing
in talking about society and intellect. The two are creating one another in
a self-reinforcing reaction. Culture determines the context for our
thoughts <http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/COGNEVOL.html> but our thoughts
communicated to one another generate the culture.
Me: Yes! Very well put.
The levels are discrete. That is, the VALUES honored by each level are
discrete. But that does not preclude one level from affecting another.
There's nothing contradictory in this. For our discussion just realize that
the societal level will only statically latch onto an idea from the
intellectual level if it is "best" for - in alignment with - the values of
the social level.
Pirsig's philosophy is elegant and simple. The evolution of levels refer
only to levels of value - not to anything else. He even labels them as
such, calling them the "...four static patterns of value" (Chapter 12,
Paragraph 2). Why are we arguing about whether the Social or Intellectual
level is superior? Pirsig clearly states that the intellectual level is the
highest static level - and he is right. Can you give me an example of a
biological level entity that has developed intellect but skipped over the
social level? I can't think of one. Ants don't philosophize.
Pirsig also says there are degrees of value within each level. This is OK
too, and fits perfectly into his idea of static latching - ratcheting up
within levels. The human social level is much richer and more complex than
anything an ant would ever be capable of because humanity has achieved the
intellectual level and ants have not. Ants lack the tools of the
intellectual level to enable them to ratchet up their societal level with
intellectual enhancements. An ant's societal level is farther down the
social scale than ours because their societal level is informed only by the
biological level. The biological level works much more slowly than the
intellectual. If the environment in which ants lived was quickly and
radically changed, they would only be able to adapt and survive if there was
a biological "idea" available in their gene pool that allowed their social
level to adapt or their biological level to adapt. BTW, did you know that
if you took the weight of all the ants in the world and added them up they
would weigh more than the weight of all the humans in the world?
Wishing you happiness,
Mary Wittler
mwittler@geocities.com
ICQ# 19168557
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/8087/index.html
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