From Glove to Roger Parker, 12/6/98:
To GLOVE: You are over my head.I have to start from the basics on your creation and discreation concepts. I don't understand why they help clarify morality. Please help me along here.
To Roger:
these concepts help clarify what significance each level of the Metaphysics of Quality has, much like your own chart. it seems to me that in many posts social and intellect level patterns of value are mixed freely. there is no method of distinguishing a social pattern of value from an intellect pattern of value. my creation/discreation concept bloomed several months ago while working on a paper contrasting Pirsig and Castanedas writings. in Castaneda's "philosophy" all interactions between the self and the environment are social interactions.
in putting that thinking towards the Metaphysics of Quality it became increasingly clear to me that our everyday reality is fundamentally what we call social level patterns of value with intellect patterns of value arising from these social interactions thru what we call "automatic thinking". but trying to say what that "automatic thinking" is turns out to be impossible. we call it instinct or gut feeling simply because we have no other analogy to call it.
i am trying very hard to put this concept into something compatible with the Metaphysics of Quality and yet i also realize it entails looking at the world in a different way as well, and that too tends to make what should be a very simple idea into something much more difficult to form agreement with.
Roger wrote:
Next , I need to understand what you mean that social patterns are always creative and intellectual patterns are always destructive. How is the theory of relativity destructive? Why does the blank 4th part of decision making have to be destuctive?
Roger, the patterns themselves are not creation or discreation...rather these static patterns of value are directed by forces of value towards Dynamic freedom. the theory of relativity is not in itself destructive, but the fact remains without Einsteins contributions to our ideas about reality, the atomic bomb probably never would have been built.
furthermore, i would say that when the theory of relativity was conceived, it was an intellect pattern of value opposed to other social patterns of value of the time. but now it has become a social pattern of value due to our acceptance and agreement with it.
in the experiment, the blank 3rd period contains no value. it is my proposal that this period is composed of de-latching value forces which, unless recognized as such, will indeed have no value as our awareness of these forces is lacking.
actually the whole concept is probably over-simplistic as incredibly complex interactions are occurring at each level creating and discreating reality. however it seems to me that these value forces have been pretty much ignored so far and that by recognizing them we can open up new pathways of understanding. and i am trying to simplify the idea as best i can.
part of the reason for the difficulty in understanding these concepts lay in the fact that they have never been discussed before, to my knowledge, and therefore much static latching is involved to see if there is any value in the idea. i will continue to try and expound on the concept until it becomes more clear to me.
thanks for reading and responding.
best wishes to all,
glove
From Fintan Mary Dunne 12/6/98:
INTELLECT IS THE DEATH MACHINE FOR EARTH>
GLOVE> >The theory of relativity is not in itself destructive, but >the fact remains without Einsteins contributions to our ideas about >reality, the atomic bomb probably never would have been built.
Sort of proves my point really without further comment.
love
Fintan Mary Dunne findunne@iol.ie
From Walter Balestra 12/8/98:
Dear Squad,
Reading the posts lately following some arguments
1) The levels Social and Intellectual are difficult to dsitinct 2) The Intellect doesn't really arise from the social level, like the social does from the biological and the biological does from the inorganic 3) I can't think of static patterns that belong to the intellectual level without the possibility to place them also in the social level (religion, science etc.). 4) I've thought a lot about Glove's theory of discreation and this would fit in (sorry Glove as it doesn't because I still don't get it completely)
I had the following intuition: Isn't intellect the DQ of the social level?
Dtchgrtngs Walter
From Glove to Walter, 12/8/98:
Walter wrote:
>Dear Squad, > >Reading the posts lately following some arguments > >1) The levels Social and Intellectual are difficult to dsitinct
Walter, yes they are, unless we can develop a way of distinguishing the levels by agreeing just what Quality a static quality pattern of value contains. according to Pirsig, there are two value forces of Quality at work in our static quality patterns of value, creation and discreation. this is of primary importance to agreeing what the differences are between a social and an intellect pattern of value.
Walter writes:
>2) The Intellect doesn't really arise from the social level, like the social does from the biological and the >biological does from the inorganic
Walter, you are both right and wrong, in my opinion. the intellect "exists" before the social level, in a manner of speaking. yet the social level must manifest what the intellect has "conceived" in order for the intellect to function. and i realize how confusing this sounds, but perhaps its easier to comprehend if we think of Time as a social level static quality phenomenon, and the intellect as unbounded by Time, so to speak. the intellect is Dynamically free to move in non-Time. what we call "back and forth in time" really is not a proper way of saying it, but it conveys the idea i think.
Walter writes:
>3) I can't think of static patterns that belong to the intellectual level without the possibility to place >them also in the social level (religion, science etc.).
Walter, nor can i.
>4) I've thought a lot about Glove's theory of discreation and this would fit in (sorry Glove as it doesn't >because I still don't get it completely)
Walter, hopefully some of my comments above will clarify my thinking.
Walter writes: > >I had the following intuition: > Isn't intellect the DQ of the social level?
Walter, this is an extremely difficult question to answer. you may be right, yet we must remember we cannot perceive Dynamic Quality in any fashion. so i am relunctant to say yes or no.
> >Dtchgrtngs >Walter
Best wishes to everyone.
glove
MORE TO BE ADDED...