Matt, Clarke, ....
Matt,
First off, I sympathize with your opening:
> Oh, Reason give me faith.
To your comment:
> Scientific evolution certainly says that "evolution is aimed at
> 'fitting the environment'". I think, though, that "fitting the
> environment" is a spin-off of biological quality. A biological goal
> that is good in-and-for itself, but for biological static patterns.
> Much as the Victorians viewed the goals of societal static patterns as
> the greatest good.
That's perfectly correct, and does not completely address what I had in
mind.
My concern is that we have two different concepts: the "goals" of a
level (what the level seeks) and the actual "evolution" of a level's
static patterns (what does it come to achieve, over time). Whether "what
one seeks = what one achieves" is not obvious, depending on context; so
my intent is that of investigating if goals and actual evolution are
necessarily coherent at the various levels.
I noticed that many MOQers identify "evolution" (i.e., change) with
"progress" (towards better quality). Now, of course change is not always
change towards the better; otherwise you would essentially nullify
morals (by apriori rejection of a distinction between "good" and "bad"
action, whereby all action is inherently good). Evolution (change) of
static patterns involves patterns transforming into other patterns and
so on "ad libitum". New patterns build on previous ones. When a new
pattern is created, it provides a basis for new patterns to develop.
Biological evolution shows that (at that level), the actual trend is
necessarily determined by whether a certain pattern is able to
perpetuate itself. You may thus consider the goal of the biological
level as equal to the "direction" (or limit) of its evolution, it seems,
only if you equate the goal of the biological level as survival (of a
race). An alternative is if you think that "higher quality" for the
biological level is supporting intellect. Seeing things in *this*
perspective, I am somewhat unsatisfied with the resulting "chauvinist"
antropocentrism of the metaphysics.
I also find some discomfort in the consideration that even at the other
levels, new patterns build on previous ones, so that the ability of a
pattern to perpetuate itself (or to be persistent) is again relevant to
the overall evolution of the level. So either you think of this "ability
to survive" as a parallel feature of patterns that coexist with their
main feature (value), which makes my hair stand, or you equate "higher
quality" to "higher ability to survive" for *all* the levels.
(So it seems, to me).
A problem with all of the above is that, to me, it is a picture of very
low quality. I don't like it at all. I think there's something wrong in
the very first assumptions.
I think Matt is right when he says:
> I think the perspective is from a scientific subjects-objects point of
> view.
But I just partially agree with what follows:
> Pirsig changes the perspective and allows for a new interpretation,
> one that doesn't change any of the evidence or leave any of it out (I
> don't think it does, anyways). It allows a scale, one based on the
> four static levels. I don't know how far we can extend the scale, if
> at all.
In my opinion, the problem with the above is that at least one "as if"
was forgotten. This is one of the most difficult "as ifs" of the MOQ, to
me, and I'm not sure Pirsig himself didn't forget in occasionally.
The problem is that the four levels, the way they are spoken about in
many posts, appear to be the four levels of the world *as perceived by
the intellect*. Can you tell, by looking at the average MD post, any
difference between biological patterns of the MOQ and the subject of
Biology? Or between social patterns and the subject of Sociology? (This
is not rhetoric, maybe you can, I'm all ears).
The reasoning above is wrong because it looks at biological patterns
"from above", i.e., as "objects", never as "subjects" (nor something
that is both and none of these). In fact, any statement about the goals
of a level (what is Quality for that level) is suspect because *we are
part of that level* and, according to Pirsig's view, we should not be
able to spell out exactly what Quality is for that level.
So, to me, the whole problem is about where are we projecting the four
levels. My position is that, due to our long-term affair with SOM, we
often tend to project the four levels onto the world of objects. In
other occasions, we might be projecting them onto the subject
(ourselves). For example Pirsig once mentions smoking as an example of
biological quality (because it feels good). This is an example of a
level projected onto the subject; if you project the same level onto the
object, it is actually good to *quit* smoking. All levels make as much
sense when projected to the subject as they do when projected to the
object: biological quality for the subject - feeling good; social
quality - feeling you have mix-appeal, sex-appeal; intellectual quality
- feeling you are understanding something new. I suspect that this
"projection" of the levels is less popular or less readily available to
MD posters' minds; no one for example argued that the goal of the
biological level is "to feel good". Many seemed to agree on "to survive"
as a goal, which is actually what you have in the "object-projection" of
the biological level and its goal.
The truth should be none of these views, i.e., we should not object- nor
subject-project the levels to make justice to them.
I'm not sure where do we go from here, or if anyone has followed. Any
idea, comment, attack is most welcome.
Andrea
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