Lithien, Mary, Platt, Roger, Jonathan, Glove AND y'all:
Glove: I really couldn't understand your post of Jan 13. Clearly we live
in two different worlds when it comes to the MOQ. Sorry. :-(
Jonathan: If I understand your point correctly, you're saying that the
intellect can alter or change patterns in the other three levels. I'm
saying it can't truely alter any of them and that it's seeming ability
to conquer nature is only superficial. Continuing with the atomic bomb
as our example, the intellect can gather fissionable materials and
assemble them, but the fissionable materials were created by Dynamic
Quality. We enhance materials in nuclear reactors so that they are even
more fissionable than the naturally occuring elements. But even in that
case, the manufacture of materials is conducted within the known laws of
physics, which are also patterns of value. We rely of the static
patterns of value to remain as nature intended so that we can predict
the effect of our manipulations. KA BOOOM !!! In Pirsig's terms you
could say the bomb is a set of inorganic patterns of value, collected
and assembled by the intellect, but not created by it. The intellect can
only create new maps of the patterns of value, but it can't create the
patterns themselves. Your view seems to me a case of the tail wagging
the dog. Or even worse, the entire universe wags and tail remains still
!? Please keep on reading. The following replies to others touch on the
same issues
Roger: Yes the levels do come into contact with each other and there is
often conflict. That's what the first four moral codes are about;
resolving those conflicts. The resolution is just a "decision" to let
one or the other level assert its' values. And the thing is that we each
are a collection of patterns from all four levels at the same time. All
the levels are in us and conflict with each other even there. That's why
I'm such a mess.
You ask, "why is the intellectual level most out of touch with Dynamic
Quality if it is the most dynamic?" and "don't dreams get the
biological level more in touch with DQ?" Instead of "most dynamic", I
should have said the intellectual level has the "most freedom". Its
range of possiblities is much wider and it doesn't have to wait for
Dynamic Quality to change and evolve. The intellect is the most
independent, but also the most precarious as it is perched way up on top
and supported by the three prior levels. The intellect's radical freedom
results in a seperation from direct contact with Dynamic Quality. The
other three levels are in direct contact with Dynamic Quality. They
operate just fine without the intellect, came into existence before the
intellect, and their patterns evolve purley due to Dynamic Quality. The
trick is that those levels are within us. Your inorganic, organic and
social patterns are in direct contact with Dynamic Quality right now.
They "know" something your intellect doesn't. Your body and unconscious
mind are in direct contact with Dynamic Quality. DQ created those parts
of you and continues to exert its force on them as you read this. So
when you ask if dreams get the bio level more in touch with DQ, I have
to say no. The bio level is already in contact with DQ, but your
intellect doesn't know that. So what dreams do is try to tell the
intellect what the body and the unconscious mind already know. Dreams
are messages from the unconscious mind, which is in direct contact with
DQ.
Platt: The quotes from scientists were great. It really shows the limits
of SOM. It doesn't even work at the inorganic level anymore, not to
mention SOM's ignorance of value and quality. Thanks for another blast
of wind in my sails.
Mary: I'll stick with your real life example of the recent change in
attitudes about smoking and smokers. It reminds of a passage in ZMM.
Pirsig says he knows intellectually that its bad for him, but he does it
anyway, cause it feels good. His biological patterns don't realize the
danger and actually value the experience.
"Where does a scientific hypothesis come from?" Pirsig asks this on page
299 in my hardback Bantam edition of Lila. In that section the author is
explaining how much the social level (the mythos) guides the
intellectual level. The short answer is that a scientific hypothesis
comes from the mythos. Scientists use intuition all the time to come up
with a hypothesis and to interpet the data after they've tested that
hypothesis. Its like the unconscious mind, where the mythos resides,
tells the intellect what to look for.Then the intellect sets up an
experiment that will reveal the facts in a way it can comprehend in its
own terms. Science make the intuitive insights into a rational
description.
The change in attitudes about smoking can rightly be called a "social"
trend.
No more smokers are allowed at ice-cream "socials". Right wingers say
its the fault of those damn "socialists" in Washington. Where can
smokers "socialize" these days? I'm being a little silly to demonstate
that the word social has a lot of different meanings. When Pirsig talks
about the "social" levels of values he means the mythos, which is a
deeper and more primary concept. He doesn't really mean public values or
peer values or even civic values, although they are related concepts and
are different manifestations of the social level values.
I'd explain the demise of the Marlboro Man as an intellectual level
event. It seems to me that there is some biology in there too; addiction
is very powerful. But we're talking about public attitudes not
biochemistry. It seems to me that there is always a message coming from
the mythos, from the social level, that says conformity is a good thing.
Don't rock the boat and all that. When Hollywood said it was cool,
people smoked more. When Washington said it was not cool, people smoked
less. The only thing that changed is what measures people took to
conform.
Clothes seem like a good example, cause the more they change, the more
they stay the same. If I design the hottest new outfit that the world
has ever known and next year eveybody is wearing it, have I really
changed the social values? How are my cutting-edge duds any different
than a cave man's bear skin? The mythos says "put something on, you're
naked dammit!". The intellect chooses the outfit, but the mythos tells
it to get dressed. A kind of ritualized presentation is effected by the
cop's uniform and the judge's robe, its a kind of symbolism that goes
beyond the main clothing issues of privacy, security and comfort. This
is stable enough that we immediately recognize the authority in an
ancient Roman soldier's uniform. The look of our soldiers is entirely
different, but we can still recognize that same kind of authority. The
outfit confers a certain social status to the wearer. And it's pretty
remarkable how much those social ranks have not changed through the
ages. That relative permanence is the stability of the mythos, and the
superficial changes in style are the work of the intellect upon that
underlying structure.
Lithien: You asked some questions in your Jan 12 posting that are
addressed in my replies above. This is already too long, so I'm going to
hope that'll do for now. But your Jan 13 post needs its own response.
There is a simple, but powerful message coming from the mythos in the
case of the devine birth stories. The "correct" interpetation of them
must be to understand the meaning of that message. I mean its not just
an acedemic issue. I can't really add to what I've already said. "A new
kind of creature has come into being, one that is more than just a man.
He is the son of Man, and also the son of god." (Too bad it's usually a
he.) Most of the UFO abduction stories include some kind of sexual
experience and that's a clue that its related to the devine birth
stories. A human/alien hybred would certainly be a new kind of creature,
and one assumes it would be superior due to it's galaxie surfing alien
genes. I think this ufo stuff is mostly just a different expression of
the same old myths. So I don't think we are really gonna see any
spaceships landing on Washington any more than I think Jesus is about to
come back. Those are just different versions of the apocalypse, which is
also a very powerful myth.
Its Joseph Campbells idea that the collective unconscious is, in effect,
created by the organism itself. He explains it in "The Inner Reaches of
Outer Space", it was his last book and is very thin by Campbell
standards. You should check it out. I think you're right to say that its
more than just biology, and I'm sure Campbell would agree.
I'll split hairs with you on your view that Zen, Dynamic Quality and the
collective unconscious are all the same. I'm going to stick with the
notion that the collective unconscious is pretty much the same thing as
the mythos, which is pretty much the same thing as the social level of
patterns of value. The mythos is in direct contact with dynamic quality
and guides our intellect toward DQ, but is not DQ itself. There is
nothing static about Dynamic Quality, but it creates static patterns of
quality at all the levels. The practice of Buddhism, as I understand it,
can be described as the discipline of mind that allows the letting go of
intellectual patterns in an attempt to percieve the other unconscious
levels and eventually to percieve Dynamic Quality directly. KA BOOOM !!!
The mystical vision.
David B.
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