| ROGER ON THE NATURE OF THE LEVELS
************* The below was written a few weeks ago to be sent to the MF. However, my newer email system does not seem to comply with the MF rules, so I cannot get anything published over there. rather than just throw this out, I thought i would publish it here. In the meantime I will unsubscribe to the MF. Sorry for cross-posting, but i really had no choice. ************* I thought this month's topic was on problems or concerns with the MOQ related to the levels, and had been preparing stuff on that tangent, only to see the discussion go to the nature of the levels. So, I have changed course to get in synch with ya'll. So, here are my ramblings on the nature of the levels. I have organized it in a manner of questions and answers followed by a summary of each level applying the developed concepts. 1) Why isn't there just one big, static level? I think this is an important question, as its answer gives insight into the divisions. The answer is that the features, values, patterns-of-values, and experiences within each level are not easily explainable or derivable in terms of the values, patterns and experiences of the others. Also, because the conflict between the varying values can be so explanatory -- actually further clarifying aspects of our world that without the levels could not be easily explained. Also, Pirsig has associated a moral hierarchy based on the versatility, dynamicness and complexity of experience and freedom inherent in each successive level. In brief, four levels explains a lot more than one big Static Quality cut. 2) How are they connected? Each level emerged out of the value interactions of the preceding level. Each level started as a value of the underlying level that careened off into a more complex and dynamic level of its own. As such, the preceding level (or at least some patterns within the level) acts as a base or a "part" that contributes to the "whole" of the higher level. Chemicals contribute to living feedback mechanisms, that contribute to organized societies, and social thoughts lead to complex patterns of intellectual knowledge. 3) How are they arranged? In a series of multiple-dimensioned hierarchies. It is a hierarchy of interaction. A hierarchy of part to whole. A hierarchy of complexity. A hierarchy of degrees of cooperation as well as degrees of competition. A hierarchy of dynamicness, of versatility, of freedom, of experience. A hierarchy of morality. 4) Are there any intellectual tools to help us better understand the levels? Actually, current studies of complexity and the mathematics of chaos theory are both recent fields of study that can be applied to emergent hierarchies. These fields were in their infancy when Pirsig was writing Lila. Some of the features that chaos and complexity deal with includes the issue of emergent features or values (called "attractors") that cannot be accurately understood or determined based on the features and values of the lower level. Certainly the MOQ doesn't need either theory, but both seem to say a lot that correlates with the MOQ. At least one correlation is that higher, emergent levels and value patterns are more complex and dynamic than underlying levels. Another is that reductionism is inadequate as a means to explain higher levels of features. For example, the study of life is fundamentally holistic. You can't dissect a living thing without killing it and destroying much of what was being studied. I am not a mathematician or a scientist, but I have yet to find any learning within either chaos or complexity that contradicts anything within the MOQ. And much of the learnings in these fields shows promise for synergistic learnings that is essential in intellectual advance. 5) What are some common characteristics across the levels? a. Cooperation or self-reinforcement. Each level involves -- to a great extent -- an element of synergy and cooperation. This seems to lead to much of the order and structure and complexity of the higher level. In fact, each level can be defined to an extent by a particular subset of self reinforcing interactions that create a self-amplifying, positive feedback loops (patterns). b. Structure, order and complexity within an otherwise entropic or destructive environment. The emergent patterns of the higher levels amount both to new forms of order, as well as new forms of disorder. c. Evolution. Each level changes over time. Despite the entropic nature of our universe, the direction of the patterns of each level tends toward more complexity, more structure, more organization, more cooperation, more dynamicness and more versatility. Again, eventually the patterns evolve and grow to such an extent that entire new realms of order and experience open up. d. Unique values, patterns of values and experiences. Enough said here. 6) What is the nature of the moral hierarchy between levels? Each level is more dynamic, more versatile, more free, and more complex. Each level involves more Quality and more experience. The MOQ equates, or at least correlates, reality, Quality, direct experience and morality; hence, by definition the higher levels are more moral. (Patterns are derived from direct experience, and 'deriving' is itself an experience.) 7) What are the levels? The levels are intellectual in nature. They are metaphysical divisions -- of course! At a higher level, they are patterns of Quality, but they are patterns of the subset of Quality we refer to as intellectual. This is self referential and recursive and can therefore appear more confusing than it is. The Quality of the levels themselves is in their explanatory ability, in their correlation with experience, in their logical consistency both within the metaphysics and to other intellectual and nonintellectual fields. The Quality of the levels is their simplicity, their flexibility, their clarity, their usefulness, their truth, their harmony. These are intellectual values. Obviously, I strongly support the more Jamesian/Zen interpretation most adamantly argued this month by Elephant. Like Jonathan, I have taken the role against the 'other' and admittedly more common position in a vast number of prior exchanges. I have actually given up on converting others. I suggest they become familiar with philosophies such as Radical Empiricism or Zen philosophers/writers such as Nishida or Wilber. Until I read these I shared the conventional view. Reality according to James and Pirsig is dynamic and flowing, and our concepts of reality are static and discontinuous (and yes, conceptualizing is itself dynamic). The levels are high Quality conceptual divisions of reality, which is fundamentally undivided, continuous and dynamic. They could be divided differently or not divided out at all. IN SUMMARY Below is a brief explanation of each level elaborating upon the previous issues. INORGANIC The inorganic level involves the values and patterns that we call the forces of physics and the particles and elements and higher level patterns that we derive in terms of these forces. The inorganic level is overwhelmingly entropic, yet the weakest of all inorganic value forces -- gravity -- is able to create local patterns of complexity and order due to the self amplifying positive feedback of gravity being universally attractive and infinite in range. The particle-patterns are attracted to each other and the closer they get the stronger the attraction builds until eventually offset by other forces. As such, the order and complexity of galaxies, stars, planets and the heavier elements that are cooked up via stellar processes is due to the positive interaction of a force that is 10 to the 43rd power weaker than electromagnetism (which is both positive and negative and hence cancels itself out and tends to complete disorder). BIOLOGY Complex inorganic proteins and amino acids have the ability to form stable self-reinforcing patterns. These are called chemical feedback loops, and are known to occur frequently and spontaneously in certain environments. These patterns have the ability to create and sustain themselves. To oversimplify, the different chemical components interact synergistically to extract energy from their environment and convert it into the manufacture and repair of other parts of the pattern. The pattern self creates and self propagates. Eventually -- or so the theory goes -- these patterns begin to replicate. Errors in the replication process, usually leading to pattern collapse, infrequently results in improved ability to sustain itself or to respond to its environment or to replicate. The higher Quality patterns thus outlast or outproduce the lower quality and over time the patterns evolve. Cells are made up of hundreds of such cooperative chemical components. Eventually, the competition for resources gets so intense (with one source of resources being other cells) that the cells learn to survive not by just competition, but by cooperation. Cells cooperate to build synergistic defenses and propulsion systems and so forth. One of the best methods to compete is to cooperate, and the more your competitors cooperate, the more you need to cooperate. Advanced living beings are composed of billions of cooperating cells, specializing and forming complex abilities and experiences that were impossible in isolation. The emergent values and patterns of biology evolve to complex experiences and populations and behaviors and ecosystems. SOCIAL The most basic proto-social activity reaches back to sex and child rearing between separate individuals of a species. This progresses to biological fields such as kin selection and reciprocal altruism -- these are the theoretical components of social interactions for most animals. Animal societies can emerge where what is best for the group corresponds with what is best for the individual. Humans take this to a completely different level though due to our ability to replicate behaviors and ideas. As such, the thoughts and interactions and organizations and behaviors of men and women can themselves evolve. People can cooperate in different ways and accomplish tasks that could never be conceived by a solitary person. A few men can divide tasks to cooperate to catch a rabbit, and a society of millions of men can build Boeing 747s. These behaviors and learnings and roles and moral patterns can evolve, and the direction of social evolution appears to be toward win/win interaction. Larger and larger groups learn to cooperate in more and more mutually beneficial means. Successful patterns are codified into mores, myths, stories, taboos, religions, laws and records. The 'negative face' of quality at this level involves exploitation and destructive competition (both biological and social) between individuals and societies/organizations. The positive side involves learning better ways to cooperate to mutual advantage. Societies are not only more complex and dynamic, they can evolve less destructively than biology. Life evolves only through the death or survival of the pattern itself -- the organism. Human societies can evolve through trial and error and through learning and adopting better behaviors. (Note: human societies can also evolve destructively or biologically) INTELLECTUAL The ability to identify, respond and share useful patterns known as knowledge goes back into the preceding two levels. At its most basic level, I would argue that there is a kernel of intellectual element in both children and even non humans. The power of the intellectual level emerges out of the complex interaction of knowledge that is applied to the process of knowledge itself. Knowledge can be used to better store knowledge, to better critique knowledge, to better transmit knowledge. But such fields as logic, math, science and the arts involve a positive sum interaction that explodes into a never-ending expansion of knowledge. It has values and emergent properties that are not at all apparent in the base social level out of which it emerges, and to which it can be applied for dramatic results. The intellectual level is the most dynamic of all the levels. Competition -- though more intense than ever in this level -- is competition of ideas. In its pure sense, nothing has to be destroyed, and every theory, good or bad, can lead to more knowledge. (Even a bad idea can instruct what to avoid) If it is not too late, please let me know your thoughts, Rog |
- RE: MD UNINTENTIONAL MF SPILLOVER ON LEVELS RISKYBIZ9
- RE: MD UNINTENTIONAL MF SPILLOVER ON LEVELS Diana McPartlin
