Hi Glove and all,
Glove, I'm really lost with the spiders on LSD thing.
>Pirsig uses spiders on LSD in Lila as an analogy of a hallucinogen
uncovering a more perfect reality >underlying the one we normally perceive
of.
Please tell me where Pirsig mentions this. I want to read it. I love the
part about "a more perfect reality", because as you'll see below it fits in
so well with my thoughts. He said, a more perfect reality. That is not the
same thing as "using the intellect directly".
> i would say spiders are a perfect example of a species by-passing the
social level and using the intellect >directly.
How did you get that out of it? I don't agree with the idea that
instinctive behavior is always or necessarily derived from intellect. In
fact, I'm not sure that it ever is. Instinctive behavior could well be
derived from a biological pattern in much the same way that the cooperation
of cells to make a biological entity is. Perhaps an instinct is an Idea of
the biological level. That is, a Dynamic Quality of the biological level.
You may recall my earlier post on "ideas" as the Dynamic Force in the
universe. This strays from Pirsig, but only a little bit. He never uses
the word "ideas" for it, but it resonates with me. Pirsig poses the
question, "It seems clear that no mechanistic pattern exists toward which
life is heading, but has the question been taken up of whether life is
heading away from mechanistic patterns?" (Chapter 11, about the middle).
Yes, what a great question! But how does this happen? What drives all 4
Static levels forward? Pirsig says Dynamic Quality, but what is that? The
analogy for DQ I like is "ideas".
Let me summarize.
1) "Ideas" are the force for Dynamic Quality in the Universe.
2) "Ideas" exist at every Static level.
a) Inorganic "ideas" led to the promotion of the carbon chain, and thus
the precursors of life.
b) Biological "ideas" led to cooperation between individual cells to
create more complex forms.
c) The same kind of Biological "ideas" that led to cellular cooperation
were also instrumental in the invention of instinctive behavior to
facilitate the success of the biological forms - i.e. species level
cooperation.
3) The lowest form in the Social level is one based on instinctive behavior
derived from the Biological level.
4) Thought (i.e. the Intellectual level) operates on a higher and different
level from instinctive behavior.
5) Thought and societies based on thought developed at the same time because
thinking about Social interaction was the first kind of thing the
Intellectual level was interested in thinking about.
6) The Intellectual level is just a newer, higher, better way of
manipulating "ideas" (Dynamic Quality).
So, when Pirsig talks about uncovering a more perfect reality, he's talking
about uncovering Dynamic Quality. The spider experiment could be analogous
to unveiling the biological level "idea" of species cooperation. The LSD
could be a way to show this. Give the spiders some drugs to disable their
Intellectual level and see how they behave. How you see them behave then
becomes a window into pre-intellectual Biological "ideas", or Dynamic
Quality. It fits.
Wishing you happiness,
Mary Wittler
mwittler@geocities.com
ICQ# 19168557
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/8087/index.html
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