FOR GLOVE AND KEN PRIMARILY, BUT FOR ALL INTERESTED.
On Wed, 6 Jan 1999 Glove wrote:
> Hi Bodvar
> thank you so much for taking your time to answer my email.
My pleasure good friend.
> Bodvar:
> ...cultural value, or the social level.......?? I think that Pirsig
> repeatedly refers to 'culture' as patterns of Intellect, in the
> same way that societies are social patterns and organisms are
> biological patterns.
> Glove:
> allow me to quote Pirsig a bit..."The new intellectualism looked to the
> 'common people' as a source of CULTURAL VALUES rather than to the old
> Victorian European models." (Page 320, bantam paperback)
I tend to make the social patterns more basic than you ...and even
Pirsig! Somewhere he speaks about Indian killing and torture as
Biological value, but I think an Indian tribe was a more basic
society than for instance modern USA, and that the said acts were
what a warrior had to do - and endure - to fulfil the [social] code
of honour, not any "bloodlust".
All right, if I say that P didn't get it right here why is he right
there? We - the LS - have have threshed his ideas for a long time
now and adjustments have been suggested. To me the Social/Intellect
was one such case that needed a certain backward shift. Still, the
overall picture stands firm.
> the intellect level grows from the social level and i suppose both levels
> together could be representational of culture, if so desired. but in my
> opinion, intellect patterns of value are individualistic by nature (directed
> by underlying forces of value seeking "discreation", Dynamic freedom) while
> social patterns of value are shared "agreements" between two or more
> entities. social patterns of value could be described as "complementary",
> while the intellect patterns of value are indicative of "individuality".
I agree with this.
> Bodvar:
> Also do I object to the idea of atoms controlled
> by forces. That evokes "matter" subject to natural laws. No, atoms
> are the the inorganic patterns themselves. Full stop!
> Glove: from my 1/1/99 email...
> INORGANIC- we are unable to conceptualize what occurs here as far as force
> of value is concerned. atoms are not controlled by the same forces of value,
> according to Pirsig, as the next three levels are. Pirsig writes: (from Roger
> Parkers email)
" Biological and social and intellectual patterns are not the
possession of substance. The laws that create and destroy
these patterns are not the laws of electrons and
protons.......THE FORCES THAT CREATE AND DESTROY THESE
PATTERNS ARE THE FORCES OF VALUE"
> therefore, i leave the explanations of what is occurring at this level to
> the quantum guys and simply assume "something" is happening there.
> so you see Bodvar, i agree with your above statement. at least i think i
> agree with it. :)
You are right, we are unable to conceptualize AT the Inorganic level,
we don't conceptualize at ANY level other than Intellect, but from
there we do nothing BUT conceptualize. Still, we experience the
values of all levels - not mediated by Intellect: WE ARE ALL LEVELS!
(Re. the Pirsig quotation above see farther down).
> Bodvar:
> Risky Roger also nurtured this division of forces and their
> manifestations, and I'm not against such a dichotomy IF ONLY WE
> SEE IT AS INTELLECT SUPERIMPOSING ITSELF ON THE LOWER LEVELS.
> Perhaps you see this Glove, but it doesn't sound like it. You make it
> all so complicated.
> Glove:
> i do apologize for complicating things. that is not my intention and i do
> see where you are coming from. however, Forces of Value and Patterns of Value
> are not the same, and i feel you may be mixing the two in your reply. patterns of
> value are static quality while forces of value are Dynamic in nature and
> creates and discreates the patterns of value that make up our everyday
> reality.
No need for apologies, but this is another thing! Does the
Dynamic/Static division continue into the static realm? It's a subtle
thing, earlier I used the wave/water metaphor, but in an "analytical"
sense I don't think so. Once the crystallizations have formed they
are incurable static and the DQ can only overcome it by creating a
new level...which in turn becomes a static prison, and so on.
"Creates and discreates" (or Pirsig's creates and destroys). Look to
Biology. If you mean that the death of an organism is "discreation" I
have no objection, the BiPoV itself is not affected. I will be
looking forward to your reply.
> the question i am attempting to answer is HOW the intellect imposes itself
> upon the other levels via underlying value forces. but much static latching
> is needed, i fear.
You bet ;-)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
On Wed, 6 Jan 1999 Ken Clark wrote:
> Bodvar and Glove,
> Hope you don't mind f I jump in here. If I have interpreted the sense of
> your discussion correctly I disagree with Bodvar on the question of Quality.
> In my opinion Quality is inherent in the physical universe and Humanity is just an artifact
> of the overarching Quality. Quality came into being at the beginning
> and is not a force. Quality is a result of the way that the Universe
> was organized physically and represents the POSSIBILITIES for
> further organizational complexity that were initially available to
> it. Whatever can happen will happen. As the initial possibilities
> were taken advantage of the proliferating organization presented
> Quality with a continually expanding series of possibilities which
> were also taken advantage of. In this way physical evolution reached
> the stage where biological organization became possible at which
> time life evolved and resulted in us.
> There is increasing speculation that the universe itself is a
> living entity (see Mary's message). If Quality is viewed in this way we are
> getting a clearer and clearer picture of the operation of Quality
> right from the Big Bang. I am leaning toward the belief that Quality is POSSIBILITY and
> that an evolving universe was a foregone conclusion right from the start.
> This does not mean that the exact progression of evolution was
> determined. The increase in complexity made it impossible to predict
> the particular path that evolution would take. Whether we look at our bodies,
> the Earth, or our Galaxy, or the entire Universe we see that these functions are
> maintaining themselves pretty far from equilibrium. This is a property of life.
> When we reach equilibrium we are dead.Then along came Robert Pirsig and
> uncovered all of these relationships and named it Quality. Its an amazing
> synthesis. It is obvious to me that the function of Quality as it concerns
> Humanity is different from the function of Universal Quality. The two can be
> at odds with one another at times. I can't remember the details now but I seem
> to recall that this is one of the soft spots of Pirsig's philosophy. He gets in a
> little trouble when he switches between Universal Quality and Human Quality.
> Did anyone else get this feeling? I have been down with bronchitis for a few
> days and am bored to death so be tolerant of the rambling. I can just see
> Bodvar exploding. Lets have fun with Human Quality :+).
> Ken
BANG!!!!!!
Will I ever understand what our disagreement is? Is it that you
interpret my above passage ("Also do I object to the idea of
atoms controlled by forces...etc") as saying that first was Quality
and then the physical universe. If so er...yes, but it hardly
matters: time - before/after, space - here/there is Intellect (what
you possibly calls "human quality". Mary indicated so.)
A metaphysics is the most overarching system there is. It
changes everything so whether Quality or the physical
universe came first - seen from the MOQ - is insignificant; the
universe - or inorganic value - is merely Quality's first static
"fallout".
> It is obvious to me that the function of Quality as it concerns
> Humanity is different from the function of Universal Quality. The two can be
> at odds with one another at times. I can't remember the details now but I seem
> to recall that this is one of the soft spots of Pirsig's philosophy. He gets in a
> little trouble when he switches between Universal Quality and Human Quality.
> Did anyone else get this feeling?
You bet I get this feeling. It was the first "leak" I spotted. If I
interpret you correctly the "soft spot" is exactly what occurs when
we make Intellect = mind of SOM. It provokes an either-or: it's
either everything or just "human value"). This is exactly what my
SOLAQI is out to fix.
According to SOLAQI Intellect is the value/capability of dividing
reality into subjects and objects (and its countless subgroups) in
the same way as Biology is the capability of living, Society the
capability of cooperation. Earlier I said that Intellect has no
reality outside itself, but, of course, all upper levels impose
themselves on the lower ones, so we may say that Intellect
influences ALL levels. Isn't that exactly the case? Intellect -
while it reigned unchallenged - tried to be all of reality (SOM).
Did I make it any clearer?
Bodvar
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