Todd and group.
You wrote:
> Wow, my suggestion was picked, I should try to participate at a
> higher level of Quality. (Late nights with coffee, May is already turning
> into a busy month)
It merely means that it is an interesting topic :-].
...snip....:
> ~ Thirdly and more philosophically, one may survey that city
> structures are built by ourselves, as a community. With all of
> Humanity being the Mystical One body and individuals being "the
> cells". As such the city, with its jails, courts, schools, hospitals
> and markets becomes a "shelter for society". The City, the State and
> the Nation, then become social patterns of value that exploit our
> individual energies to support the whole. The city structures remain
> inorganic and the "Giant" becomes our communal self. (The MOQ supports
> this view)
The MOQ endorse that one may speak of Inorganic, Biological,
Communal and Intellectual selves, but the biological image of big
cities as super-bodies consisting of humans as "cells" with super-
MINDS (in the SOM body/mind sense) is wrong. I spoke about
this in my reply to Mark B and Horse and will proceed to the
following paragraph to find another pretext to zoom in on my pet
theory: the mind fallacy.
> These three views invite questions, such as " would not the first
> structure have been a "shelter for survival/biology", rather than
> community/society? ("Of course", Yes!) And why do we now create
> machines that think for us? ("Freedom", perhaps?) "What does this say
> about our intellect?
Yes, Todd what does this say about intellect? In my opinion it
equates it with SOM's "ghost in the machine" mind. Look. MOQ's
"Intellectual Level" is a static pattern of existence, no mental
superstructure upon biology - the latter forces us to construct a
biological image of cities.
"Machines that think for us"! is the same tendency, now to
construct a biological image of the inorganic level! Enough complex
circuits and voila! MIND! Machines compute and calculate, but in a
MOQ universe the intellectual level isn't thinking but perception of
that particular static quality (and to a certain extent perception of
DQ. Only the highest level borders on to DQ).
> So let's put away the logical, creative and philosophical views above
> and let us assume that cities 'are' living entities, based on Pirsig's
> rhetoric that it is just as foolish to think that we humans could
> crawl out of the periodic table of elements as it is to think that
> Chicago, New York, Las Vegas, Dallas or Hong Kong could arise from the
> dead rock we call earth.
I don't quite get the logic here. Pirsig's rhetoric is that it is foolish to
think that cities could arise from dead matter. Good! Then why all
this talk about superorganic giants? Unless as a pretext for
imposing a supermind on to it? They are social patterns and that's
a level above biology. BTW, humans as biology DID crawl out of
the periodic table of elements, didn't it?
> Now with the 'assumption' that cities are "living" I ask,
> "How does this pragmatically change our view?"
> With this assumption I will briefly answer Jonathan's questions:
> <<1. Is the Giant conscious of its own behaviour in the same way that
> the individual person is conscious of his/her own behaviour?>>
> I would infer an answer of "no", and rather think that the giant is
> yet evolving into self awareness, but I would also question how much
> is an individual conscious of his/her own behavior most of the time?
> (Was Lila more self aware than Phaedrus?)
I too answered "no", but from different premises.
> <<2. Can we as individuals be aware of the Giant's consciousness?>> I
> would say, "No, not totally ". Just as I cannot "will" my fingernails
> to grow at an advanced rate or "will" the reversal of my aging process
> fully. I cannot know the full mind of the "Giant". Nor can the "Giant"
> will me into full submission, just as I cannot tell my red blood cells
> to stop dividing or "will" cancer cells to stop growing. 'Free will'
> supports all levels. Opposition is true friendship! (The creative
> force is Opposition.)
I answered "yes" because we ARE (of) the social level, but tell me
who is the entity who wants - but can't - increase the growth of
finger-nails or stop aging? Our biological self IS the biological
processes and does "want" them to proceed at the correct rate.
However our social self constantly "wants" biology to behave
differently: Not burp at the table (grin), but rather stay young, pretty
handsome and slim!
Our intellectual self (our social self's natural born enemy) in turn
"wants" our social self to stop interfering. It does so by
denying/neglecting social value, insisting upon itself as
"consciousness" directly out of the body. Socially-induced abuse
of the body like anorexia, beauty surgery, circumcisions etc remain
mysteries that the intellect can find no REASON for.
Stop me before I write more!!
Bo
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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