MARY, DAVID, KEN and Group.
Mon, 18 Jan 1999 Mary Wittler wrote to David Buchanan:
> First of all I want to apologize for sending a post with the entire
> original message attached! It had scrolled off the screen and I
> didn't even remember that it was there until AFTER I hit the send
> button. Well, first sign of old age and all that.
Don't worry it happens in the best families :-]
> Now down to business. David, you said yesterday:
> > I'm guessing we have different ideas about the meaning of the
> > words "mythos" and "logos" and your question arises from that. Do
> > we agree that they correspond to the social and intellectual
> > levels respectively?
> No, I don't believe the mythos corresponds to or defines the social
> level, and here's why. The levels are only a platform built at the
> pleasure of the intellectual level itself. They are an invention of
> SO logic for use by SO logic; useful only because we are incapable
> of understanding Dynamic Quality directly. They give us the
> comprehensive framework our intellect demands for any kind of
> understanding of the MOQ, our Universe, or ourselves. The levels
> are very useful, but they aren't the MOQ itself. I'd bet we agree
> on that. But there's more. I believe that all the levels represent
> somewhat arbitrary divisions of reality. Yes, I agree that the
> mythos is very old, that it's most likely at or near the foundation
> of the social level, and that it has permeated all human society
> through all time, but I also believe the social level has grown and
> evolved from that mythic base.
Hi Mary
Excuse me for jumping into your discussion, but we have reached
frightfully heights in our philosophical trek, and not much is needed
to send us crashing down (will we ever reach a new plateau?) so I must
try to prevent you from taking a step that looks dubious to me. I had
expected David to yell out, but he did possibly not notice it.
When you say that ....The levels are only a platform built at the
pleasure of the intellectual level itself ...it sounds as if the
lower levels of the MOQ are the creation of the upper level of the
very same MOQ, but I don't think we can see it that way (my idea that
Intellect imposes its S-O nature on to them is not similar to it);
the levels ARE the Metapysics of Quality! It stands or falls with
them. In the above sentence Intellect attains the (for me) SOM
position as mind (or "thinking itself") while the rest of the static
levels are the world that can be arranged at Intellects leisure.
The MOQ is the static levels - Intellect included - and that is why I
want the Q idea to be something transcending Intellect. The MOQ is
open-ended at the top, but closed at the bottom. It sounds
preposterous, considering the time perspective, that now, a mere
blink of an eye after the Intellect has established itself, the
Dynamism is about to break Intellect's rules, but I see no other way
unless Intellect becomes "it all" much like good old mind.
What it amounts to is that I think David's mythos may well correspond
to (or be of...) the Social level and logos to Intellect. All levels
has been THE TRUTH once, but been degraded by the next level (only
after language did it get our abstract quality !), Matter was once
"it all", but Life came along and degraded it to something that could
be exploit. Now to jump to the present situation. The level beyond
Intellect (what about 'Faculty X' as a tribute to Colin Wilson) is
about to make Intellect (=Logos) a myth that IT can analyze at its
leisure. The fact that the Faculty X also is a level of the MOQ is
the unavoidable new new metaphysical border. I can see no escape
from that, or any possible system that can.
The rest of the letter to David - and the other "political" message
of 18 Jan was very good, I fully agree to your analysis of the
Social-Intellect struggle, it was only the above point had to be
approached with my red pencil :-).
For KEN.
Wonder if this also has a bearing on the infamous "human quality
issue. You see the development up to Biology (according to your latest
message to Horse) as "universal quality" all good and perfect, then,
due to sentient humankind, a new quality emerged that changed
all rules and introduced evil. Well, in a sense ALL Q-levels
"changed the rules" once upon a time), but it was not Biology and
then selfconscious humans (Intellect), rather Biology then Society
and then Intellect. In a SOM context the latest development was the
fall from grace or the rise to self-consciousness, dependent upon
myth-faith or logos-faith. But the Metaphysics of Quality sees it
totally different; the levels are increments of value (or
signal-interpretation re. Peirce) nowhere does any sentience or mind
enter the picture........ As I see it.
Bodvar.
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