From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Jul 30 2003 - 21:42:58 BST
Hi Rick,
>J
> > The only biological pattern between two people I can think of is
> > reproduction, which is why I see a marriage as a single biological
>pattern,
> > a single flesh, as it were, and not two individuals. Otherwise
>reproduction
> > would be social, when it is clearly quite biological.
>
>R
>I agree that 'reproduction' is biological, but I think 'marriage' is
>social.
>I see marriage as a social pattern partially directed at facilitating the
>biological pattern of reproduction. But I don't think that biological end
>makes the marriage itself biological. To use another example, getting food
>is a biological pattern (all life forms do it in one way or another, just
>like they all reproduce); 'Farming' is a social pattern directed at
>facilitating the finding of food, but that biological end doesn't make
>'farming' itself a biological pattern.
Keep in mind that neither the man nor the woman reproduces, the marriage
reproduces. I'm using the term in the literal sense, to mean a sexually
active couple.
I think farming began with an intellectual idea about how society could get
food better than the gathering method it was using at the time. And then as
people started relating to one another with roles on the farm, it became a
set of social patterns that people just followed. But if a person planted
some corn seeds to grow their own personal food, and didn't think about how
society could benefit if it did this, and also didn't do it through relating
to any other people, then it would be biological.
>J
> All other patterns
> > that emerge from the relations between people would seem to me to be
>social
> > patterns. Can you give me an example of a usual pattern of how people
> > interact that is not social?
>
>R
>As I said, I think the behavior has to be copied from another human to be
>social. Examples are hard to come by these days since pretty much of all
>of
>our behavior is dominated by social or intellectual patterns now. But
>imagine two hypothetical human babies raised by wolves. They live their
>lives running with the pack and behaving exactly as the wolves do; their
>behavior being driven by the same biological patterns as the wolves'. When
>the two of them interact, their behavior isn't any more "social" than the
>wolves' behavior is.
Wolves have social patterns, they describe how wolves interact most of the
time. And those kids, say there were ten of them, would have their own
social patterns that describe their usual interactions.
>J
> I think Pirsig may have said murder is a
> > biological pattern, but, first of all, murder is not the pattern but is
>the
> > name for the immoral inverse of the social pattern of not killing each
> > other, and secondly, it's social.
>
>R
>I agree that murder is social. Maybe 'killing' is biological... animals
>kill each other all the time. But 'murder' is defined by a designation of
>law, which a social pattern.
In my state, murder is not defined. There's no constitutional ammendment
planned for that one though, because no one is trying to put the Red Sox in
jail for murdering the Devil Rays. I think killing is social also,
though...
>R
>I disagree with all this "immoral inverse" stuff. I think 'murder' is a
>low
>quality social pattern (ie. it's a social behavior of the basest sort).
>Low
>Quality because it upsets the stability of other social patterns if people
>just go around killing each other.
>
...it is only the breakdown of a pattern. I don't like the idea of "low
quality" patterns (I agree with DMB on that one) I think all patterns are of
equal quality. Where patterns vary is in the strength of their expectation.
Some patterns, like gasoline burning when a match touches it, are very
strong, while other patterns, like wood burning when a match touches it, are
less strong. The stronger patterns override weaker patterns, but all
patterns are moral patterns that try, for goodness sake, to realize
themselves again. So there can be no moral patterns that are not good to
continue, no "horrible" patterns of morality. If you show me a "horrible
pattern", I bet we can find (in contrast to David, who suggested we'd find a
lower level pattern masquerading as an idea) that the pattern is in fact an
inverse of a moral pattern, an immoral breakdown of expected behavior.
> > >R
> > >That's why I like "built on social patterns". Because saying you need
>"two
> > >societies" sounds like you mean "two cultures".
>
>J
> > Well, I think most intellectual patterns did come from the culture being
> > exposed to other culture's social patterns, but sometimes the "other
> > culture" is just two different perceptions of one culture.
>
>R
>Well, I'm not sure if I agree with the first half of this, but I think the
>second half is okay (although I still think the way you choose to express
>it
>is needlessly confusing).
The need comes from my theory that higher level patterns are between units
of the lower pattern. Sure, if you don't like that idea, then there's no
need to posit the "two societies" idea. (Hey DMB, is my "idea" high
quality, or is it not an idea at all?)
>R
>It's Quality. Quality creates the patterns as a 'vehicle' to ride towards
>higher orders of complexity and betterness. Through the interactions of
>the
>patterns at a given level, different kinds of patterns emerge (ie.
>inorganic
>patterns of carbon become life), at first for the benefit of the lower
>level
>itself. But once the higher order of patterns becomes stable enough to
>constitute a better vehicle for Quality, it seizes the higher level and
>'goes off on purposes of its own'. From the perspective of the lower
>level,
>it seems that those purposes are the purposes of the higher level, but in
>fact, they are the same purposes behind all levels... Providing Quality
>with
>a vehicle to ride Dynamically forward.
So you don't think Quality is active on the lower levels anymore, huh? It
got too static, so Quality gave up trying to create new patterns there and
just started making new patterns using those lower level patterns? The only
problem I have with this is that it is too mystical for me, too open-ended
and easy and self-defining. But I still haven't figured out how to explain
how an organic pattern can be "about" an inorganic pattern either, so my
theory has some of those same problems.
>J
> Anything that happens, happens because, at the moment of it
>happening,
> > we expect it.
> We may not have expected it 15 seconds prior, but our
> > expectations change as our experiences change. Expectation doesn't come
> > from us, it comes from outside us.
>R
>Expectations come from somewhere outside of us??? I don't think so.
>'Expectations' are about projecting the past that only exists in our
>memories into the future that only exists in our plans. They only exist in
>the post-interpretational (;-) world of static patterns. The
>pre-interpretational present is indifferent towards them.
Our memories came from outside us. I remember the Columbia tragedy because
it happened, it doesn't exist only in my memory. Even if something does
exist only in my memory, it is there because something happened outside of
me (or was suggested to have happened by my therapist). You can't have an
expectation come from out of the blue, they are extremely closely correlated
to reality, to history.
>J
> Patterns are
> > expectations, they are the expectation of the pattern continuing. If
>they
> > weren't expected to continue, they wouldn't be a pattern at all. They
> > continue because they are expected to, because expectation being
>realized
> > is good.
>
>R
>This sounds greatly backwards to my ear. I don't think that patterns
>'continue because they're expected to'. I think we expect them because
>they
>have been continuous in our experience so far. But that doesn't mean that
>they'll necessarily continue to be continuous.
Of course not, but we expect them to be, and if they don't we expect an
explanation involving other stronger patterns. All expectations may not be
realized, they are only expectations, not certainties. Even night
following day may not continue.
> > I don't, but I am sorry if it gets tiresome.
>
>R
>Nah. Stand up for what you believe is best, it's your only chance at
>becoming a vehicle for DQ :-)
Thanks. I can't do anything but what I believe is best (but you can
influence what I believe).
>J
> Haven't
> > you ever expected to be surprised before?
>That's what excitement is all
> > about.
>
>R
>How can you be surprised by something you're expecting? Isn't that why
>"surprise parties" are kept secret from the V.I.P.?
Yes yes, true. I was still thinking about the movies, or maybe a amusement
park ride, when you expect to be subjected to surprising twists and turns.
You can't be surprised by WHAT you are expecting, but you can expect to be
surprised in general.
>R
>Yes, expectations change, but not always in advance. In fact, I would think
>that usually we have to go through the new experience and then reflect upon
>it before our expectations are really changed.
Expectatins change to match what we percieve as the current reality in
advance, in the "pre-intellect" simultaneous to the quality event (the
quality event is our expectations being changed). You're right that long
term expectation change also, after recognizing a new pattern.
>J
> I can see that it is hard to see how the 'probability' half might be
> > hard to reconcile with morality, but that is because people today
>confuse
> > morality with ethics.
>
>R
>I think you should consider (at least just consider) that it's you, and not
>'people today', that has become confused. You're confusing yourself by
>unnecessarily linking two equivocal meanings of the same term. But we've
>been there before.
Well, go back and look at the etemology - moral comes from mores, from the
latin "mos" - and it described what "mos" people did, not merely what people
thought they ought to do (though it did that too, but Plato tried to
separate the good, the ought from the probable, and began the whole
confusion). Also ask yourself why FOUR WORDS all have that same dual
meaning. If they were equivical meanings, I wouldn't expect every word for
morality to have the same split.
>take care
>rick
take care
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