hi gang: Maybe Bodvar will be relieved when he notices that the "global
consciousness" notion came from a different Dave. In fact, this is my
first post on this month's topic. But perhaps it was a telepathic
pre-emptive strike because my first answer to the question of a fifth
level has to do with an old book titled "COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS; A Study
in the Evolution of the Human Mind".
But first things first. I have a lot of sympathy with Jonathan's
objection, but I don't think it's a show stopper. We have to accept the
axioms. Speculation on a fifth level could shed some light as long as we
realize it doesn't really exist yet. Our speculations will necessarily
take us beyond the MOQ and that could be alot of fun. On the other hand
our extrapolations will have the disadvantage of amplifying and
compounding any misconceptions we might have.
One area where we seem to have a lot of agreement is the position of the
fifth level. It would be above the fourth level. The fifth level would
have to be the offspring of the intellect, and as Bo points out, it
would look a lot like intellectual values at first. I also agree that
the artificial intelligence approach won't work in the MOQ. If Pirsig is
against the deadly crossfire that has social level values pinned down,
he's hardly going to go along with AI, which skips two levels instead of
just one. AI is twice as bad as SOM.
I'm thinking that Maggie's brainstorming sessions are so productive
because they accidentily put social vaules back on the table. Problems
are solved in a group rather than by commitees or individuals. I bet if
you asked the participants, they'd say they felf more natural and real
doing it that way. The old way seems clumsy and forced because it is.
But I'm just guessing.
It seems to me that the fifth level would almost HAVE TO be created in
the future. Why should the evolutionary process suddenly come to an end?
A fifth level seems more likely than not. But it is a level of reality
that doesn't exist yet and is beyond our imagination in a very real
sense. We imagine it like a fish imagines fire, not very well.
FREEDOM, COMPLEXITY AND THE MIGRATION TOWARD DYNAMIC QUALITY
I thought that each level acted to help preserve and enhance the freedom
of the one below, but apparently there's is disagreement on this point.
Pirsig points to the idea that "man is born free, yet everywhere he is
in chains" and says its not true. Its one of those SOM standards he goes
after. He says its not true because social organization liberates the
organism from mere survival in the wild. Society doesn't chain men, it
sets them free from the demands of biological quality. It seems to me
that intellectual values are supposed to to the same for society. Maybe
I've compounded a mistake, but I'd say that the fifth level would
liberate and preserve the intellectual level , in spite of the
inevitable conflict that comes from newly born levels.
SHE"S A SICK BABY
The reason the intellectual level seems so hostile to society is that it
was just born and suffers from SOM, which compounds the problems with
newly independent levels as they establish themselves. Before a fifth
level can ever be hoped for, the fourth level has to straighten out and
grow up. We're talking about when an infant will bear its own children,
and I'm not even sure if she's gonna live to a child-brearing age, so to
speak.
DEGENERATE HINT OF THE FUTURE or PRECOCIOUS EVOLUTION
Constructing the MOQ was degenerate because it seeks to explain the
mystical (DQ) in intellecutual terms. Its degenerate because it brings
lowers the mystical down to the top. Down to the top. There's a big hint
about the fifth level, eh?
Richard Maurice Bucke wrote "Cosmic Consciousness" in 1901. He was
superintendent at London's (Canada) Asylum for the Insane. With such a
new-age sounding title, I have to add that Bucke and his book were
enthusiastically acclaimed by William James. Essentially, Bucke saw that
there were widespread accounts of dramatic conversion experiences
reported in all times and places, but that they were increasing in
frequency. He saw that the mystical experience was getting to be more
and more common
as time passed. He says these experiences not only represent a radical
shift in consciousness for the individual, but that this kind of
illumination was advancing mankind's relation to the Infinite. (DQ?)
This seems like a reasonable way to imagine it. Look at remarkable
people who are considered to be ahead of their time and you'll see
what's in store for the rest of us in the future. Maybe the fifith level
will emerge slowly and steadily as more and more people experience that
radical shift. Maybe it'll come like a giant tidal wave and drown all
the unconverted.
DMB
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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