Magnus wrote:
>The same goes for ants and bees in their societies, and I do want to call them
>societies. They might not have schools or churches, but they do have an egg
>nursery, and a well drilled defense army. None of those are intellectually
>designed, but they have evolved because they have social value.
We argue weather an ant hill is a social structure or not, but according to
some prevailing theories of evolution (notably Lynn Margulis's) every
multicellular organism is a symbiotic colony of ancient seperate cellular
organisms. More then that, the cells themselves are communities of bacteria
which have adapted to living together as single organisms.
Some of us may dismiss this example and say: "but this pattern clearly
belongs to the biological realm..." Well does it?
"The tests of truth are logical consistency, agreement with experience, and
economy of explanation." (LILA Corgi ed. p. 121)
Does Prsigs hirarchic division of the four realms of quality of the MOQ i.e.
: Organic, biologic, social and intellecual REALLY meet with these tests?
I think one of the great achievements of Pirsig is the clarity of his
description of the four seperate realms. One of the weaknesses of his
theory, is the hirarchic order of these realms, and the implication that
they arise one out of the other. If we lend Lynn Margulis's theory any
weight (and there are significant reasons to do so which we need not get
into here, but it satisfies every test of truth according to Pirsig), then
we must ask ourselves how and if the complexity of society differ from the
complexity of an ecological system? of symbiossis? Why must we insist that
they are different? Is it logically consistent?
Are Social Giants unique to human culture? the example of the Chimps clearly
says they are not.
I think the boundaries are not clear.
According to Pirsigs tests of truth, I would say the complete seperation of
MOQ's realms does not have logical conssistency, and it does not meet with
experience.
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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