On the Structure of Reality

“… static patterns of value are divided into four systems: inorganic patterns, biological patterns, social patterns and intellectual patterns. They are exhaustive. That’s all there are. If you construct an encyclopedia of four topics – Inorganic, Biological, Social and Intellectual — nothing is left out. No ‘thing’, that is. Only Dynamic Quality, which cannot be described in any encyclopedia, is absent. But although the four systems are exhaustive they are not exclusive. They all operate at the same time and in ways that are almost independent of each other. This classification of patterns is not very original, but the Metaphysics of Quality allows an assertion about them that is unusual. It says they are not continuous. They are discreet. They have very little to do with one another. Although each higher level is built on a lower one it is not an extension of that lower level. Quite the contrary. The higher level can often be seen to be in opposition to the lower level, dominating it, controlling it where possible for its own purposes… now atoms and molecules are just one of four levels of static patterns of quality and there is no intellectual requirement that any level dominate the other three”.[1]

Robert M. Pirsig, Lila: An Inquiry into Morals

This is a systemic, antireductionist and non-dualistic vision of nature and processes. The structure of reality, or nature — which the ancient Greeks called ‘physis’ — I also call ‘place’: reality is the place of processes, i.e., a complex system of processes, which range from inorganic, or physicochemical, to intellectual, or symbolic (which are exclusively human processes), passing through biological and social (which regard all living beings). Place is the underlying and unifying framework of such many different processes, that is: place is the unifying agent of nature. No ‘thingis left out.

Note

Robert M. Pirsig, Lila: An Inquiry into Morals (v. 1.0, Corgi Edition, 1992), 72, 73.

Image Credits

Featured Image and Image 09 by Quang Nguyen vinh on pixabay.com

Image 01 by stein egil liland on pexels.com; Image 02 by ArtHouse Studio on pexels.com; Image 03 in the Public Domain on pexels.com; Image 04 by Anrita1705 on pixabay.com; Image 05 by ju-dit on pixabay.com; Image 06 by Aamir Mohd Khan on pixabay.com; Image 07 by Rudolf Rantzau on pixabay.com; Image 08 by Ian Parker on unsplash.com; Image 10 by Anthony DELANOIX on unsplash.com; Image 11 by Alvan Nee on unsplash.com; Image 12 on historyofsciencemuseum.com;

Show CommentsClose Comments

Leave a Reply