MAGGIE, BODVAR, LITHIEN, MARY, ROGER, GLOVE:
I came back to work after a couple days off and found a ton of postings.
I feel a little overwhelmed with all the great questions and
counter-points. I don't think I could answer all of it, even if I tried.
But I did read all the postings, as usual, and was especially interested
in Maggie's post of 1/14, Bodvars post of 1/15, and Lithien's thread on
the problem of evil in the MOQ.
I'm enjoying the thread on primary cultures in South America too, but
Maggie's post on cognitive tools is more directly related to the issues
we've been addressing. It's well worth checking out regardless of what I
have to say about it.
http://members.iglou.com/hettingr/pirsig/CognitiveTools.html
The idea there that all previous cognitive abilities remain in the mind
as an evolutionary inheritance is related to what I've been trying to
say about the difference between the social and intellectual levels.
Take the case of the debate with mary about the tobacco wars, for
example. I'm saying it's happening on the intellectual level and Mary
says its happening on the social level. But Maggie's phrase "socialized
intellectual patterns" may bridge the difference. Could we say that the
social level is something like the kind of consciousness Maggie refers
to when she says " a vestigal mimetic culture embedded within our modern
culture"?
Bodvar's posting on the semiotics of Charle Piecrce was equally
excellent. Like Maggie's posting, it shows that the evolution of the
static levels of the MOQ is an evolution of consciousness. Or even
better, the levels are different forms of awarness. I refer to BO's
marriage of semiotics and the MOQ, where the biological level relies on
the inorganic level as its groundstuff, as the signs that it interpets.
And so it is with the social level, which relies on the biological for
the signs that it can interpet. Naturally, it follows that the intellect
interpets the signs from the social level. There is a point in Pirsig's
paper, "SOD and V", where he says that the scientific method always
insists on biological proofs, sight and the other senses, but has left
out social proofs as an effort to eradicate prejudices from the process.
But if semiotics is an accurate picture of the MOQ, then that is a case
of the intellect avoiding its main reality and trying to read signs from
an inappropriate level. I think Pirsig is saying that even natural
science has to be mediated also thru the social level because thats were
the intellect gets its signs, because the social level is the context in
which the intellectual level can exist. Maybe thats why the intellect
can create such an obviously immoral thing as a fussion bomb? Bo, is it
right to say that for the intellectrual patterns must be interpeted thru
all the prior levels or is the social level the only context for the
intellect? I think the former, but yours is the first understandable
explaination of semiotics I've ever read.
P.S. BO: I think you're right about Plato. Pirsig doesn't quite hold him
up as the hero I made him out to be. Although as far as Western
tradition goes he was the loser in his contest with Aristotle to
dominate philosophy. And Plato not only wrote favorably about the death
of Socrates, but also wrote "Phaedrus". I've been re-reading that and
it's amazing to see that the debate is very much like Pirsig's
examination of Lila, the crazy slut. You know, different forms of Love.
(Quality)
I can't resist a little tangent. Star Trek fans will like this. Hope you
haven't already heard it. This was a minor thread a month or two ago and
I never got in on it or saw anyone else make the point. Anyway, the idea
is that the three main figures in the oringal series, Kirk, Spock and
McCoy, represent the three parts of the soul as depicted in Plato's
"Republic". Plato's main idea in his "Republic" is that a healthy
government was like a healthy mind. He said that within the mind are
three forces that need to be in balance; temperance, reason and
passion. Reason and passion are kinda like classic and romantic and are
represented by Spock and McCoy respectiviely. Kirk is temperance, the
ability to balance the two extremes. You'll notice its always the same
with those three. Spock says "It's not logical to risk the many for the
one." and McCoy says "But, my god, people are dying down there!" and
Kirk considers both positons and says "OK gents, here's what we're gonna
do,...".
I'm surprized no one has introduced the five moral codes as a response
to LITHIEN's evil thread. It seems to me that if there anything like
evil in the MOQ it exists as far as any transgression of those codes
exist. For example, in his paper, Pirsig objects to the attempt to
remove social level values from scientific inquiry. In Lila, he
explicitly says that Fascism is immoral because it is essentially an
anti-intellectual movement that puts third level values in charge of
fourth values.
It seems to me that the intellectual level is the only level with the
freedom to make such a transgression. Maybe that's what was meant by the
Arawete's idea of evil? What was it? The potential of the thing that has
freedom to do harm, cause it can do what ever it wants? Wasn't it
something like that in one of the primary cultures mentioned?
I wonder, is it always a transgression of the levels that "causes" too
much static and not enough dynamism? In any case, the prohibition of the
progress of Dynamic Quality is also considered immoral in the MOQ, isn't
it? For example, Pirsig says that Victorian "virtue" was a kind of
repressive static evil. Don't ya love the irony?
Evil virtue! Ha!
I'm reminded of the original meanings of the words "sin" and "repent",
words which I always hated and associated with bible-thumpers and
doomsday prophets. I've discovered their original meaning is a lot
different than I thought and I've overcome the prejudice against those
words. Sin is an archery term and means "to miss the mark" or "miss the
point". So the whole connotation is different than what one hears in the
churches. Instead of a behavioral lapse, the word suggests a simple
misunderstanding or misconception. Repent is not, "you did something
wrong". Its more like, "you're not comprehending properly" or "you're
not getting it". The word "repent" was something like "meta-noea" in the
original Greek version of the new testament. The "meta" part of the word
is familiar to everybody here. You know, as in "meta" physics of
quality. The spelling is likely wrong, but the "noea" part of the word
means "to think or contemplate", as in the Noetic Sciences. So you can
see that together, "meta-noea" means something like "think about your
thoughts or re-examine your ideas". Pirsig would probably enjoy the
fact that the word has a impertive connotation to it as well, and so an
even more accurate idea of the original meaning is something like "you
better think about the way you see things and make some changes, cause
you're missing the point". Pretty cool, huh?
Your unindicted co-conspirator,
David B.
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