Roger,
here is the second thread about intellect.
MARCO (previous post):
The inorganic world also "simplifies experience" and
behaves according to patterns. But if you are using "life" also for the
inorganic level, we agree.
ROG:
I do not know of any examples that inorganic reality simplifies experience.
MARCO:
IMO when an electron captures energy and performs a quantum leap, it
simplifies experience. IMO when light passes through a prism and splits in
colors, it simplifies experience. "Experience" is simply interaction within
an environment, and behavior is the answer to the experience. The behavior
is always organized according to simple patterns, even at the inorganic
level.
MARCO (previous post):
I've the impression that you are valuing only the "rational" side
of human brain, and leave secondary the "intuitive" side.
[...]
Your position [...] contains the risk of forgetting the "best" part of our
mental possibilities.
ROG:
Intuition and creativity are metaphors for DQ in action. They are not part
of the level of static patterns.
MARCO:
metaphors for DQ in action.... hmmm. Intuition and creativity are part of
this world, so, as everything, they are both DQ and sQ. Pure DQ does not
exist, just like pure sQ. Even the most intuitive and creative person, when
in action, is partly slave of its static patterns. And the result of its
creativity is necessarily made of patterns. Just like in the prism example.
MARCO (previous post):
I can't imagine ART being less than intellectual. I can't imagine Picasso
being less than Einstein. One possibility is the fifth level, but I'm very
negative about it. We don't need it. IMO the best view is to consider ART
and SCIENCE being two wonderful intellectual possibilities. If only we could
enlarge this poor vision of intellect......
ROG:
I don't know that it is less. I think Platt and Pirsig think that it is
greater. To be honest, I don't know yet. It does not seem to me intellectual
at all. I think forcing it into this level demeans art. If forced to make a
guess though, I would say that PAINTING and DRAWING are social. Art is the
creative, intuitive indefinable aspect of these that can drive painting and
drawing forward. Art is DQ. (Again, ICBW)
[...]
I think he [Picasso] was an artistic painter/ drawer, not an artistic
intellectual. Or, perhaps he was JUST an ARTIST.
MARCO:
Painting and drawing are techniques, not exactly art. They are forms of
language, they are social just like language. In facts, you can paint with a
good technique, and without any artistic ... value. Art is the ability to
use those techniques in order to express something. Art, or, better, rt, is
not DQ, it's immediately after. DQ is the event, rt is the best form of
"translation" of the event. What we commonly call "art" (painting, theatre,
poetry... ) are part of the widest family of "rt", which includes every
activity dedicated to search for excellence. By means of RiTual and
cReaTivity (method and intuition).
To say that Picasso was a painter is like to say that Pirsig is a writer.
Or that Jesus was a preacher. Of course it's true, but there a lot missing.
I'm not exactly forcing art as intellectual. I mainly want to say that "rt"
is the ability to "do well". To create or perform something aesthetically,
functionally and whatever else perfect. So "rt" can be intellectual or
social.. even biologic and inorganic... if the result is a good
translation of DQ into static patterns. But, as IMO according to the MOQ
there are four possible kinds of patterns, it's currently high valuable
every form of art that is intellectual. While it's less valuable every form
of art
that is simply social. Today new Pyramids, if built, would not be as
valuable as the originals. That's why 5000 years ago their purpose was
mainly social (whatever else, at those times?). Actually we (try to)
recognize today in them the value for what they were representing to their
creators. While it's currently more valuable a form of art in which the
creator expresses his thought, or state of mind, or insights.
ROGER:
Intellectual patterns are those that have been created and "proven" via
these systematic intellectual processes.
MARCO (previous post:)
Intellectual patterns created by intellectual processes. A tautology. Of
course true, but it doesn't add a lot, here.
ROG:
Again I differ. I think this is a critical point. I am saying that
intellectual patterns are those that are derived via a particular
methodology. The difference between a thought and a scientific theory is
one of methodology [...]. Methodology is the key.
MARCO:
In fact, here is our disagreement. IMO up to now, we can't find decisive
arguments to "prove" the rightness or the weakness of our positions.
(And however I don't want to prove anything, I'm just trying to explain my
point and understand yours) .
I offer that that "method" sounds a little static... a sort of ritual. Can
intellect be also dynamic and creative?
MARCO (previous post):
I agree on Occam's razor and so on.... You offer a perfect description of
western science. But where is the evidence that western science is the whole
intellect? IMO this is only an assumption
ROG:
Western science, logic, math and philosophy. Yes, this is clear from even a
casual reading of the book.
Pirsig's examples in Lila of the intellectual level are
TRUTH,
SCIENCE,
METAPHYSICS,
POSITIVISM,
SOCIOLOGY,
PROVISIONAL SCIENCE,
TEHNICALLY TRAINED ANALYTIC MINDS,
THE SOCIALISM DERIVED FROM HEGEL AND MARX,
INTELLECTUAL PLANNING,
THE THEORY CLASS, etc. (page #'s are available upon request)
In addition, he speaks of President Wilson and his intellectual advisers as
being at the forefront of the new level. And he mentions that
"intellectuals follow science" and that the level has foundations that
"predate philosophy
and science."
[...]
Overall, I think that I may draw the line slightly differently between the
levels than Pirsig does, but I am at a loss to recognize any differences
that are material. Please let me know what I am missing, and let me know
how your ideas mesh with this list. (After all, ICBW)
MARCO:
Your list is very accurate. I would offer that my impression after the
reading of the book is that Pirsig talks about an intellect which is
imperfect and still occupied in its social struggle. He has not good words
for many aspects of western intellect (for example when he talks of
objectivity). At the end his MOQ (that is, you recognize it, intellectual)
is the attempt to begin a new phase in the intellectual evolution. An
intellect which is able also to lift its look above. Not only engaged in its
social struggle, but also engaged in the construction of something new. I've
read his suggestion of arts being the "new code" as the trial to reconcile
art and intellect on a new field, in which your list could represent one of
the bases.
MARCO (previous post):
[...] the Picasso example I offered challenges you to find how is it
possible that my intellect is influenced by art. Both in your and Bo's
assumptions, Picasso is a Platypus.
ROG:
And Pirsig's.
MARCO:
Are you sure?
Did you ever read the SODAV paper?
PIRSIG:
"The block at the top contains such static intellectual patterns as
theology, science, philosophy, mathematics".
MARCO:
Even theology is intellectual, IMO a form of intellect even less refined
than science. Please, Roger, add this one to your list :-). He does not
mention art, but this only the starting point.
PIRSIG:
"... what is called "Dynamic Quality" is also called "The Conceptually
Unknown." Then the two come together. I would guess that the Conceptually
Unknown is an unacceptable category in physics because it is intellectually
meaningless and physics is only concerned with what is intellectually
meaningful. That also might be why Bohr never mentioned it. However I think
that this avoidance of The Conceptually Unknown should be revised. It is
like saying that the number zero is unacceptable to mathematics because
there's nothing there. Mathematics has done very well with the number "zero"
despite that fact. The Conceptually Unknown, it seems to me is a workable
intellectual category for the description of nature and it ought to be
worked more. As a starting axiom I would say, "Things which are
intellectually meaningless can nevertheless have value." I don't know of an
artist who would disagree with that".
MARCO:
Science can't give intellectual value (meaning) to The Conceptually Unknown.
BUT the MOQ introduces the concept of "DQ" (equivalent to The Conceptually
Unknown), as a new INTELLECTUAL category. I repeat, INTELLECTUAL.
PIRSIG:
"What science might not agree on is that this Conceptually unknown is
aesthetic. But if the Conceptually Unknown were not aesthetic why should the
scientific community be so attracted to it? If you think about it you will
see that science would lose all meaning without this attraction to the
unknown. A good word for the attraction is "curiosity." Without this
curiosity there would never have been any science. try to imagine a
scientist who has no curiosity whatsoever and estimate what his output will
be.
This aesthetic nature of the Conceptually Unknown is a point of connection
between the sciences and the arts. What relates science to the arts is that
science explore the Conceptually Unknown in order to develop a theory that
will cover measurable patterns emerging from the unknown. The arts explore
the Conceptually Unknown in other ways to create patterns such as music,
literature, painting, that reveal the Dynamic Quality that produced them.
This description, I think, is the rational connection between science and
the arts".
MARCO:
There's a RATIONAL connection between science and arts! It's the
conceptually unknown, that is intellectual and aesthetic. So that it can
contain both science and arts into a new intellectual/aesthetic frame.
PIRSIG:
"... one of the reasons I have spent so much time in this paper describing
the personal relationship of Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr in the
development of quantum theory is that although the world views science as a
sort of plodding, logical methodical advancement of knowledge, what I saw
here were two artists in the throes of creative discovery".
MARCO:
Heisenberg and Bohr were ARTISTS!!! Their scientific "method" is the
technique, just like drawing is the technique of Picasso, writing is the
technique of Pirsig, preaching is the technique of Jesus. Science as a
logical methodical advancement of knowledge is just an imperfect "view".
PIRSIG:
"They were at the cutting edge of knowledge plunging into the unknown trying
to bring something out of that unknown into a static form that would be of
value to everyone".
MARCO:
(please, reread this last sentence :-)
Do you remember my definition of intellect: take a small piece of DQ and put
it in a coded and socially shareable form. This is both ART and SCIENCE!
PIRSIG:
"As Bohr might have loved to observe, science and art are just two different
complementary ways of looking at the same thing. In the largest sense it is
really unnecessary to create a meeting of the arts and sciences because in
actual practice, at the most immediate level they have never really been
separated. They have always been different aspects of the same human
purpose".
MARCO:
Art and science are sharing THE SAME HUMAN PURPOSE !!!
MARCO (previous post):
My attempt is to glimpse a possible development of intellect out of the trap
of scientific method. In order to complete it: I'm not the enemy of
intellect [...], I'm just arguing that what you are calling
intellect is only the first step of something that has unexploited
possibilities.
ROGER:
Logic and science only take you so far.
MARCO:
IMO Pirsig is not exactly on your side.
ROGER:
Don't try forcing art into science though. I suspect you will denigrate
art.
MARCO:
But I'm not forcing art INTO science. I want that art and science can walk
together. Their complementary, not exclusive.
ROGER:
I am working now on a lengthy paper to explain this called Positive sum
quality. IMO every level emerges via a self amplifying feedback process.
More to follow in a few months.
MARCO:
time to revisit the "beta version" of your paper? :-)
ROG:
.... perhaps you are engaged in a very unhealthy obsession.
MARCO:
Unhealthy obsession is maybe too much. ;-( Even Pirsig has been deemed
unhealthy and closed into a madhouse. Exactly by those scientific,
methodological, rational thinkers like you are.
Ciao
Marco
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