From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Mon Aug 04 2003 - 02:47:46 BST
Hi Platt,
It's nice to agree!
>> I don't rule out a types of people application. I agree with you, as
>> long as you're willing to accept that a types of people application of
>> the levels is entirely relative. It's impossible to say which patterns
>> of value dominate a person in an absolute sense. One person may be more
>> or less affected by intellectual value than another and we may therefore
>> call one person intellectually dominated and another socially dominated,
>> but let's not think that we can actually tell which patterns have the
>> most influence over a person in an absolute sense. How would you know
>> whether intellectual values are more dominant over inorganic values?
>> Without inorganic patterns we literally couldn't even keep our feet on
>> the ground or our atoms together to form a body for that matter.
>
> I sorry I gave you the idea I was arguing for some "absolute sense." I
> wasn't. I think we agree that it's a "value call" like most everything,
> depending on experience and circumstance.
>
>> I think what we may really be talking about when we talk about dominance
>> or types of people are which kind of values are reflected in our thought
>> patterns which is why we would never even talk about a person being
>> dominated by inorganic value.
>
> Yes. As Pirsig points out, we perceive and judge through our cultural
> and experiential "glasses."
>
>> Then let us aspire to applying the MOQ system of morality rather than
>> merely focusing on "being on" a level within that system. I don't think
>> it's a good idea to talk about different people being on particular
>> levels of a metaphysical hierarchy. I would rather talk about dominance
>> of metaphysically different patterns of value in each person's forest of
>> static patterns than suggest that there are metaphysically different
>> types of people.
>
> Yes, dominance is the key. My mistake in giving you the impression that
> I thought there are metaphysically different types of people. All
> people have intellectual, social, biological and inorganic values.
> Variations between individuals occur, mostly at the social and
> intellectual levels. The values anyone holds at any particular time can
> vary from hour to hour. But, we can make generalizations such as Pirsig
> on the whole is more intellectually oriented than Lila, even though
> they both got down at the raw biological level for awhile one night.
> :
>> I agree that the intellectual level is a higher level than the social
>> level and so on, but that doesn't mean that the point of the MOQ is that
>> we should rid ourselves of all lower level values.
>
> We couldn't if we wanted to. But isn't the point of the MOQ to give us
> some intellectual values to better understand reality than the
> prevailing SOM explanation?
>
>> We should support intellect's True over society's Good and we should
>> support society's law over the law of the jungle whenever a lower level
>> threatens a higher one. I think the MOQ message runs far deeper than to
>> suggest that we be more intellectual. It says that it's moral to take a
>> break from philosophical discussion to have some lunch which violates
>> favoring intellectual values over biological one. The MOQ says it's
>> moral to do so because without biological health there is no brain to do
>> the philosophical thinking.
>
> Well, we didn't need the MOQ to tell us that it's moral to eat. :-)
>
>> To me being as moral as possible means aspiring to apply the MOQ system
>> of morality. To aspire to intellectual values sounds empty to me in the
>> way that I understand intellectual values. I can't imagine what it
>> would mean to embody the value of the like of 2+2=4, though to live the
>> MOQ system of morality would include defending moral status of "2+2=4"'s
>> truth against some church of bad arithmetic.
>
> That's what I meant by "aspire to intellect's values," to comprehend
> and apply the MOQ system of morality. In terms of intellectual value,
> I can think of nothing higher than the MOQ, even though a reasonably
> bright 14 year old can grasp it. In fact, that's one of its great
> beauties.
All this agreement is getting boring, so I'll respond to what you said to
Johnny Moral instead. ;-)
Platt said: " At the intellectual level you
think for yourself. At the social level, you think like everyone else."
Steve:
Previously you seemed to support that intellect is simply thinking. Are you
now going the route of Bo and DMB in saying that there is social thinking
and intellectual thinking or are you talking about dominance again?
When defining social patterns of value rather than describing a relatively
social pattern dominated person, I would have said, "at the social level,
you copy the behavior of others *without* thinking."
Thanks,
Steve
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