To: Wim, John and Platt (With PS to Andrea and Marco and gang)
From: You know who
JB:
I notice Roger that you disagree that Pirsig does not take seriously the
third or contemplative level. To be fair, I believe he has done a great
service in pointing to this level, (the Zen in ZAMM), and he continues to
speak of the mystic approach with respect in Lila. Nonetheless, Lila is a
metaphysics, and as such speaks to the cognitive intelligence, whereas
meaning, I suspect, is never adequately encapsulated there. I like your
suggestion, Wim, that he should write a third novel dealing with meaning.
ROG
I find the 3rd level as buried under the storyline in both. Kind of a
mystical journey of a guy that thinks too much -- in fact, his attraction to
intellectual knowledge is one of the nemesises of each novel..
JB:
Roger, I shall endeavour to respond to your points as concisely as I can. As
I read it, a key issue in the evolution debate was teleology ("that nature
is directed and purposeful and that humans are its inevitable, penultimate
product", is how Glenn put it. Platt implies man is of "higher" quality than
a crab) Now I agree with Glenn that Scott Peck's view is naive. Gould,
however, seems to be stuck in what Wilber calls 'flatland'. That is, quality
emerges only coincidentally from the aimless "hurrying of material,
endlessly, meaninglessly", to quote Whitehead. Wright's views as Glenn
describes them also seem not to require any hierarchy of value. Whitehead
directly challenges this reductionist argument, in the extended quote of
Wilber's I included in my last post. (I must admit to not having read
Whitehead in the original, and having struggled mightily with various more
or less simplified versions of his thought. I found Wilber's exposition
refreshing, but cannot vouch for his accuracy.)
ROG:
Yes, I agree both Gould and Platt live in flatland or SOM, and that they are
very one dimensional. I too doubt that "hurrying of material, endlessly,
meaninglessly", explains evolution. And I too find Whitehead impenetrable.
The four levels of Wilber do add value to the topic of evolution. Especially
to the degree they are integrated.
JB:
Your comments on dissipative structures and self amplifying feedback loops,
Roger, I have no problem with, so far as they go. I also agree with your
comments on the God=DQ believers. I further agree that increased complexity
does not equate with increased quality. What is really at issue, though, is
whether we can ever find quality or meaning by starting with empiric, or
even rational, knowledge. This is the direct challenge of Wilber/Whitehead.
ROG:
I think I agree here too. Rationality and science lead to only a narrow
spectrum of knowledge.
JB:
Whitehead, at least as Wilber interprets him, would suggest that quality is
not spread evenly through the universe. We encounter more quality in an
organism than in matter, and more in a society than in an organism. So far
this seems to run fairly well in parallel with Pirsig. There is a vague link
with evolution in that matter is a prerequisite of the evolution of
organisms, and organisms as a prerequisite for societies. But Whitehead
suggests terms such as creativity and love as the highest exemplars of
quality, not intelligence (though Pirsig rather cursorily suggests a level
of art, which perhaps correlates with creativity).
ROG:
It always seemed to me that Pirsig's static patterns were more moral because
they were more versatile, dynamic and creative. They experience more and in
a universe where experience is morality, greater sustainable and growable
experience is more moral. Intellect is highest because it is most creative.
Many disagree with me here, of course.
JB:
Love and creativity, to
me, point to the necessity for a subject in relationship with other subjects
as the carrier of this level of quality. Not the lonely intellect, but the
engaged subject. (I exaggerate, of course, but this is close to the
difference Pirsig paints between Dusenberry and himself in Lila.)
ROG:
I think Pirsig misses love too.
Where Wilber becomes significant is in his assertion that there are three
forms of knowing, and they are hierarchically organised. Evolution (as a
scientific term) seems to me an intellectual construct, which can generate
some empirically testable propositions. This much is good science, but it is
the tremendous heuristic strength of the concept of evolution that intrigues
me. In some ways it functions very much as a meme, in that it seems to offer
a 'better' explanation of how things come to be the way they are than the
alternatives on offer. Yet it draws on only the lower levels of knowing
available to us. But if Wilber and Whitehead are right, the real source of
knowledge of quality is in the contemplative or spiritual level. Now if
Pirsig is right, our encounter with quality is primary, and our thinking and
experimenting about it is secondary. Whitehead asserts that what is of most
value can be found only in the higher levels ("you first look to the higher
levels for the general principles of existence" as Wilber states it). But
science generally does not or cannot do this. Scientism denies these levels.
Ordinary science generally chooses to ignore them, while uncomfortably aware
that "good" science cannot be defined using only empirical knowledge.
Whitehead saw the significance of the hierarchical structure of our universe
(societies reveal more than organisms which reveal more than matter) but he
did not have the meditative practice which would have provided him with
direct access to the highest exemplars of quality. Hence his view of God, I
suspect, becomes more an inspired guess than an experiential reality. He
recognises there are "higher" things than societies, and suggests creativity
and love. Ordinary science baulks at terms such as these, yet cannot avoid
recognising that quality enters even ordinary science through the back door,
as it were, when scientists judge some research as "good", and some as
"poor" science.
ROG:
Again I agree. Science leads to a narrow view and in the case of evolution,
an incomplete view. Of course I also agree that intellectual constructs are
one of the necessary perspectives.
JB:
Now I take it we are exploring evolution on this forum because we take
seriously Pirsig's assertion that quality is primary. Evolution seems a high
quality idea, because it resolves so many issues at the inellectual level.
And we can certainly debate intellectually on this forum. But all the while,
Pirsig reminds us, the lure of quality transcends our merely intellectual
debates. One strand of the evolution debate has been whether evolution, the
process, leads inevitably to higher quality. Platt seems to think evolution
implies progress. (I am sympathetic at one level, as the term 'fittest' to
me implies a quality judgement.) But here we enter the real difficulty. If
we assert that evolution leads to higher quality, we need to be able to
define quality. And this, says Pirsig, is just what we cannot do. Stalemate.
ROG:
What evolves is a pattern's ability to sustain itself in a given environment.
It survives by changing as much (or little) as needed to survive. From this,
I would say that complexity and intelligence and consciousness are all
statistically inevitable (and statistics does not require chance), even
though there is no inherent direction to evolution. Its directionlessness
guarantees its vast versatility. I would say that evolution does imply
progress , just not at any given step. Progress (and lack of progress) is
inevitable, but not at the individual or species level, just at the
Evolutionary level. And this applies to virtually any definition of
progress. This make any sense?
JB:
Enter Wilber. Yes, we can explore quality, but at the transcendental level,
not at the intellectual level. And yes, we can discriminate between valid
and erroneous knowledge at the transcendental level in just the same ways we
can so discriminate at the level of science, or ideas. But to do this, we
need to become educated in the spiritual level. So the idea that a science
or a metaphysics can give us answers to our fundamental questions and issues
is just plain wrong. This is what Wilber calls a category error. Our
fundamental issues revove around quality, or creativity, or love, (notice
how inadequate the words are). These fundamental issues can be explored
experientially, but never adequately described in words.
ROG:
Yes, exploring intellectual knowledge is not exploring transcendental
knowledge.
JB:
So to adequately explore whether evolution leads to higher quality, we must
first ascertain what it is we mean by higher quality, but as this is a third
level understanding, it cannot be adequately debated in second order
language. So yes, Roger, I will reluctantly have to concede that "to
understand the meaning of evolution ... I must meditate". I guess that in
asserting a purpose or goal to evolution, we are dragging in meaning.
I am not wanting to say you have not done your homework, and frankly I am
only interested in debating at this level with you because you have. And
while debate is a second level process, we can still point to the moon of
quality, and recognise that in so doing our debate may become paradoxical.
ROG:
Well said.
Rog
PS -- A MORE INCLUSIVE TRUTH could be the subtitle for both threads -- this
one and the special glasses one.
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