Hi levellers
I have quite a few thoughts on my mind but I don't know really where to start.
When I think about the MoQ, especially the levels, I try to do a bit like Pirsig did
with his slips. Take a piece of reality and see where it fits in the division I have
decided to follow for the moment. The thing is, *everything* has to fit. And it has
to fit nicely, otherwise the division is a bad one and you have to start over with a
new one, refitting all of the slips into the new order of things.
Take, for example, the position of many squad members that the social, biological
and inorganic levels are just subdivisions within the intellectual level. For one
thing, it falsifies Pirsig's claim that the first division is the static/dynamic
split, then the static is divided into four levels. Instead it becomes three
divisions, first static/dynamic, then the static is just intellectual, then the
three sublevels. Or it becomes, intellectual/dynamic, then the three sublevels. But
it's not important that it it falsifies Pirsig's claim, what's important is that the
reality doesn't fit such a division.
Take for example the time of the universe before we showed up. If there were no
intellectual beings around, who was there to intellectually perceive all the
inorganic, biological and social patterns out there? It sounds like that time is
unimportant - no, not only unimportant, non-existent! It's problems like this that
causes people to come to the conclusion that the universe is just a big sleeping
giant dreaming it all up, and that's not a very attractive universe in my book.
BTW Elephant, I see now where you got the idea that intellect/non-intellect maps
exactly to the static/dynamic split. But please don't do that, I hate to say it but
if I don't, Bo will. You're getting awfully close to the mind/matter dichotomy here
and we all know where that leads.
I think the error most make when they try to make level divisions, is to not make
the static/dynamic split *first*. What I mean with this is since the levels are on
the static side, we must try to avoid dynamic involvement *as much as possible* when
we're trying to figure out the level divisions. It's just like in the science lab,
we have to make our best to rule out all unknown variables. Only the known ones must
be manipulated, otherwise the result is useless. We'll either come up with a faulty
theory, or more probably no theory at all.
I'll try to continue tomorrow, and to be a little constructive...
Magnus
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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