This is mostly a response to Bodvar, but I've a question for Mangus and the
other bee keepers. How do ant colonies and such transcend biological sq? I
think that's the key question. If you're going to claim that it is social,
you've got to show how it goes past biology. More below...
> -----Original Message-----
> From: skutvik@online.no [SMTP:skutvik@online.no]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2000 12:40 PM
> To: moq_focus@moq.org
> Subject: Re: MF bee culture and the missing link.
>
>
>
> Genuinely connected to the Giant discussion. I'll try. My misgivings
> about the (social) giant was its biological aspect and once that was
> "killed" I have nothing against such a vision of - for instance - a big
> city. And yet I find it strange that such a monster and it's devouring
> nature seems like a revelation to so many, after all suppressing
> society has been the western culture for a long time now ..... while
> we seem to be blind to the Q-intellect Giant.
>
[David Buchanan] Well, long and short are relative terms. I think
that, historically speaking, 1917 was just yesterday. Even if we pushed it
back to 1789 or 1776, that's just the day before yesterday. The social level
was in charge for tens or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of years. The
intellectual level took charge 83 years ago! Its a baby, a tiny infant. Have
hope for its future. Nurture it. (Can you tell I just became a dad? Ha!)
Q-intellect Giant? Hmmm. I wouldn't choose that image to depict the fourth
level. I'm at a loss to produce a better one, but the intellecual level
seems more like a giant tamer or the king of smallness or something else,
something at odds with the Giant.
> I wrote about your message triggering a vision of intellect's giant, I
> have always felt more oppressed by (my own) "reason" than by
> other people or "society". The bigger the giant the better, if there
> was a plan for global government I would be the first to sign :-). This
> possibly says something about me, but we are discussing
> philosophy not psychology ;-).
>
[David Buchanan] Well, I'm with you there. Except a global plan for
government strikes me as an intellectual level thing, an international
organization designed to thwart the excesses of nationalism while protecting
the rights of each. (Fascism is extreme nationalism, the social level
reacting. Franco, Spain's Fascist leader, tried to restore the Spainish King
in 1975. That speaks volumes about the nature of Fascism.
I mean, the struggle with social patterns isn't so personal for me.
Its about the battle against regression, devolution and destruction of the
kind of progress that has produced freedom. I think its a pretty big deal if
the bad guys win, so to speak.
> Before learning about the MOQ there was no way to "hit back",
> reason was reality itself and intellectual suicide - choosing to
> disregard reason - was not my way. So when reading ZAMM the
> sentence about "giving the ghost of reason a good trashing" rang a
> bell with me and started my Pirsig fascination. The preliminary
> MOQ (of ZAMM) did not make it quite clear how reason could be
> trashed and continue as a more 'reasonable' reason. Locked inside
> the subject-object metaphysics there's no way to tone down
> "reason". SOM IS REASON!
>
[David Buchanan] I don't think reason and SOM are the same thing.
Remember the late night talk after the rotisserie scene? I think the
"expanded rationality" that Pirsig talks about there is answered by his own
MOQ.
>
> But the full-grown MOQ gave such an opening with intellect as one
> static level that may be outgrown. ......well, here i go again.
>
[David Buchanan] Right, but are we really ready to outgrow
intellect or just SOM?
I think there are many layers of development within each level. Look
at the difference between algea and Homo Sapiens. Both biological, but oh
what a difference. SOM is just one of the first layers in a whole new level
that is just getting started.
>
> Yes, that is the goal and I look to the MOQ as a Western way to
> enlightenment, but "mysticism" is forever tucked away in the
> harmless "eastern retreat for those who cannot stand the light of
> reason/cold scepsism of science". You are also right in stating that
> intellect has just taken charge - in the sense of dominating our
> outlook - but as a static value level it isn't that recent.
>
[David Buchanan] Hmmm. This is the lynchpin of out disagreement. I
think Pirsig was very interested in expanding rationality in such a way as
to accomodate Mysticism. He equates DQ with it and DQ is the key to freedom
from sq, even Intellectual sq. In fact, I the SOLAQI is patch to cover this
leak. Without this leak, you simply don't need SOLAQI. - Right, the
intellectual level was born long before it took charge. Socrates. 450 B.C.
or so?
>
> You see SOM one intellectual pattern that may be replaced by
> another intellectual pattern, for instance the MOQ? But doesn't
> that make both MOQ and SOM - and whatever "metaphysics" we
> may cook up - intellectual patterns ad infinitum? In the MOQ
> intellect is merely a static level which is supposed to be
> surpassable and how can there be an escape from such an
> intellect? I call upon Magnus who often stressed that a
> metaphysics is the first fundamental entity. The MOQ and the
> SOM cannot occupy the same "volume".
>
[David Buchanan] OK. Try this image on for size. Rather than levels
or layers or blocks, imagine the different kinds of static quality as a
series of concentric spheres. The inorganic patterns are at the core and are
surrounded by bio patterns, which are also surrounded by the third kind of
static quality. (Notice how the volume increases.)
So, its not enough just to trade on set of static intellectual
patterns for another set in some lateral move. The idea is that the MOQ
expands rationality and makes the intellectual level grow further outward,
even if it is still within the fourth level. So that SOM and MOQ don't share
the space. They both represent the creation of new static patterns. They
both add to the "volume" of static quality as they evolve. It's just that
SOM isn't new enough anymore. We want to preserve that progress without
being hindered by it. So an expanded rationality doesn't need to destroy or
contradict or otherwise nudge out the previous rationality, it increases the
total volume.
Yea, that's what the MOQ is all about, bigger balls.
DMB
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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