From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Jul 07 2003 - 04:18:51 BST
HI Rick, all
>R
>Interesting question. And I think it implies another interesting question,
>which is "Can levels get promoted?". Take this quote for example....
>
>PIRSIG (LILA p344)
>"The intellect's evolutionary purpose has never been to discover an
>ultimate
>meaning of the universe. That is a relatively recent fad. Its historical
>purpose has been to help a society find food, detect danger, and defeat
>enemies."
>
>R
>This quote makes me wonder whether this historical intellect predates
>social
>patterning.
>
>Finding food, detecting danger and defeating enemies is something that
>every
>animal does. Eons before there were societies, or social patterns, or even
>humans, there were animals finding food, detecting danger and defeating
>enemies. When humans came on the scene, the demands of the environment
>(biological + inorganic patterns) necessitated that if they were to
>survive,
>like every other species, would have to come up with a way to find food,
>detect danger and defeat enemies. For whatever reason, unlike other
>animals
>who had evolved extra sharp senses, claws, teeth, horns, etc, etc...for
>humans, it was the brain that evolved to give them the edge needed to make
>the Darwinian cut. And for millions of years it went on like this, packs
>of
>biological humans using their biological brains to solve biological
>problems... really no different than packs of wolves using their teeth and
>noses to solve the same problems. At this point I would see the existence
>of only 2 levels, Inorganic and biological. The "intellect" is still no
>more than a biological pattern serving a biological purpose. Biology was
>100% of the equation that determined our behavior and thoughts.
>
>However, eventually there came a point where the packs of humans using
>their
>intellects to find food, detect danger and defeat enemies began to develop
>social patterns to solve these same problems. That is, the "biological
>intellect" invented social patterns because it figured out that social
>patterning was the best way for humans to find food, detect danger and
>defeat enemies. The more social patterns developed, the less the
>"biological intellect" itself was needed for those original evolutionary
>purposes. The problems of food, danger and enemy were best solved by
>following the social patterns and eventually, there came a point, maybe
>even
>a single moment in history, where the social patterns became 51% of the
>equation that determined our behavior and thoughts.... I pin that day as
>the
>birthday of "Society", or "the Giant". And once the Giant was in control
>it
>didn't take long until social patterns were invented for every conceivable
>purpose and had become so entrenched that intellect had essentially become
>all but obsolete in the quest to find food, detect danger and defeat
>enemies. It was dormant... drowned out by the social force. But more
>importantly, it was now free to 'go off on purposes of its own'. It was at
>this point that the Intellect ascended to the top of the chain, being
>finally "promoted" above society.
>
>I don't know... what do you think?
J:
But social patterns aren't "invented" like that - I see "invented" social
patterns as being iintellectual patterns trying to control society. I think
as soon as there were two humans, there were social patterns that describe
the way the two humans interact. If they kept to opposite sides of the lake
and always ran away from each other, then that was the social pattern.
Patterns describe existing behavior and things, habits and ttendencies.
>S
> > Enough for now. I've been emphasizing types of patterns of value for
>some
> > time and haven't gotten much response. I hope you will consider the
>"types
> > of patterns/types of people" distinction in reading Lila and that you
>will
> > choose to talk about patterns of value rather than types of people when
> > clarity is needed. I think it would clear up a lot of disagreement in
>this
> > discussion group.
>R
>I think I agree with your "pattern" v "people dominated by patterns"
>distinction. People are animals who are sometimes dominated by biological
>patterns, sometimes by social patterns, and sometimes intellectual
>patterns.
>I like that, I'll think about it some more.
I agree too. I think that whether or not people are dominated by or
propogate patterns is not to be confused with the patterns themselves. The
human consciousness is neither biological, inorganic, social, or
intellectual, but is probably that undifferentiated quality.
Johnny
_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Jul 07 2003 - 04:19:29 BST