MARCO TO ROGER
Roger, many thanks for your answers. Hope to clarify my points here.
> I believe that the intellectual level refers to the systematic ART of
> building and testing simplified intellectual models that allow us to
> identify, learn, test, categorize, record and apply our experience. Through
> this methodology, higher quality ideas evolve.
IMO our problem is about the nature of "intellectual models". Another problem is
about method.
> Pirsig carefully delineated the major weaknesses of Western intellectual
> practice. He discovered inherent defects in it. One major problem was that
> empiricism and rationalism cannot support itself. (As Platt frequently and
> rightly reminds us). Another is that it has excluded values. Another is
> that it has reduced art and quality down to a mere field of study . Another
> is that it cannot explain where hypotheses come from. Another is that it
> excluded concepts that could not be considered rational and defineable.
> Another is that it views subjects and objects as a fundamental division of
> reality. Another is that it elevates truth above quality. ote that most of
> these problems are related.
Excellent list, Roger. As always, you demonstrate a great synthesis skill
> Despite these weaknesses, Pirsig acknowledges that the scientific methodology
> is inherently dynamic as it requires conjecture and invites argument and
> tries to avoid dogma ( albeit not always successfully). The scientific method
> has led to an incredible self amplifying increase in knowledge. I believe
> the intellectual methodology can become even more successful with Pisigs
> corrections of these shared misconceptions in
> Aristotelian/Cartesian/Newtonian/Kantian thought. The MOQ is the expansion of
> intellect to correct its defects AND to RighT the defect of placing art under
> truth, by clarifying that truth is a subspecies of GOOD, not the other way
> around.
>
My current thought about methodology is that it's an excellent technique of refining
intellectual patterns. But it's a dangerous weapon: this obsession of science for the
method is strictly related to the concept of truth and objectivity: the methodic
experiment should prove the eventual truth of a theoretical premise, objectively and
independently by any observer. This objective science well knows that theories are
in some way aesthetic, but considers them of no value as long as the objective
unaesthetic method will not confirm them. IMO the MOQ shows that this assumption is
merely an illusion: the method is aesthetic just like the theory. In the passage
about
Poincare, (ZAMM, chapter 22) Pirsig shows it:
<< Method is precisely this choice of facts [...] Poincare then hypothesized that
this selection is made by what he called the "subliminal self,'' an entity that
corresponds exactly with what Phĉdrus called preintellectual awareness. The
subliminal self, Poincaré said, looks at a large number of solutions to a problem,
but only the interesting ones break into the domain of consciousness. Mathematical
solutions are selected by the subliminal self on the basis of "mathematical beauty,''
of the harmony of numbers and forms, of geometric elegance. "This is a true esthetic
feeling which all mathematicians know,'' Poincaré said, "but of which the profane are
so ignorant as often to be tempted to smile.'' But it is this harmony, this beauty,
that is at the center of it all. >>
By this point of view, it's easy to see the limit of the scientific objective
worldview: objectivity is an illusion, the method itself is artistic. It's the "art
of the intellectual maintenance": an excellent aesthetic tool for intellectual
patterns refining. IMO as the motorcycle maintenance does not create the
motorcycle, the method does not create the intellectual pattern.
I don't know if we agree here. However, more about method below. As you say, the
point is not whether science is an art. It's whether Picasso is an intellectual.
Let's go on.
> As Pirsig says back in Ch 21 of ZMM, Quality "provides a rational basis for
> the unification of three areas of human experience which are now disunified.
> These three areas are Religion, Art and Science." He goes on to define art
> as "high-quality endeaver." The rest of ZMM and Lila and SODV continue this
> unification process.
>
> This is a roundabout way to say that ART or Quality or DQ or "high quality
> endeavor" is not a subspecies of intellectual patterns. To subordinate Art
> or Quality within the intellect is to repeat Aristotle's mistake.
>
Here you seem to state the equivalence of ART and DQ. Even accepting this, is Picasso
DQ? Maybe it's too much, even for him. The problem we must firstly solve is about
the term ART. I do prefer distinguish "RT" and "ART". RT is not exactly DQ.... it's
the "trait d'union" between DQ and sQ. What is commonly known as "ART" (Drama,
Painting and so on... ) comes later.
IMO RT is the process by which DQ becomes sq, at every level. RT is not merely
intellectual: we could say there's an intellectual rt, a social rt, a biological rt
and even (maybe) an inorganic rt.
Bur ART is human. Its role can be social (the Colosseum). Can it be also
intellectual? It depends on what we call "intellect". The Aristotle's mistake you
mention is, IMO, that he has subordinated Good within the scientific truth. That is,
he considered the scientific truth as equivalent to the whole intellect. The
correction I
suggest, according to my comprehension of the MOQ, is to make it possible for the
scientific method to grant equal dignity to art.
> The discussion
> has NOT been whether Einstein was an artist. I have always believed he was.
> The discussion has been pivoting on whether Piccasso was an intellectual. I
> have argued that he was not and that to put him here denigrates Picasso and
> Art.
[...]
> I am still keeping an open mind on the issue.
Given that he was an (excellent) painter, I'll try to explain again why I see him as
intellectual. That is not that I see him as a scientist. I consider artists being
(also, not merely!) intellectual as they share the same purpose of scientists. This
purpose is to increase the knowledge of universe, to advance the horizon line towards
the unknown. This "mission" was given originally by society to science, in order to
increase the social power. Then science saw it was good, and transformed this
"mission" into a purpose of its own. Definitely this purpose is, as we well know,
evolve towards excellence.
The mistake of western science has been to consider this "advancement towards the
unknown" as something of finite. There have been times in which it seemed to be
possible. So they have lost the "concept of the conceptually unknown". Pirsig
suggests a great correction for this mistake. Pirsig also suggests that artists never
lose this concept.
And also Pirsig shows that science hardly admittes that this universe it studies is
not merely made of substance, particles, energy, proteins, cells, and so on...
Emotions, "giants", dreams, ideas, imagination, ghosts, states of mind... are as
real as "matter". Even more real than matter, as they are made of higher quality
patterns.
IMO art demostrates a great capacity to investigate these aspects of reality. Better
than any science, independently by the scientific method. And independently by the
eventual concept of "The Conceptually Unknown" reintroduced into science (the
Pirsig's correction). My impression is that you have a sort of mystic vision about
artists. You see them as pre-intellectual (or pre-static). You admit they can grasp
DQ, but you seem to say that only if they are also scientists (like Einstein) they
can transform their dynamic experience into intellectual patterns. IMO Picasso was
not mystic. If he was mystic, he had not transformed his dynamic inspirations into
pictures. By putting his visions of reality into a static picture (using a method
known as painting, maybe not scientific, but however a method) he refuses to be
merely mystic and tries put into a static form his interpretation of reality.
I admit it's not easy to "read" an intellectual message in a picture. But let's try
to shift the focus from painting to theatre, and maybe it's more clear. Just as
example, there's a quite famous Italian "Nobel for Literature", Dario Fo, who is a
great dramatist. His pieces are famous for the message against the conformism of the
Italian culture of last 40 years. He demonstrates how the ancient Italy ruled by the
Popes and our modern nation are not so different. The vices of the rulers and their
flatterers have no time. I love him, he is a genius. He makes me laugh, a lot. And he
makes me think. Note that this two effects, laugh and thought, can't be easily
separated. Usually they come from the same witticism.
When I watch his dramas, I learn a lot about Italy, about our recent (unofficial)
history
and about our past. Definitely, I understand a lot about myself, as I see where I
come from.
Dario Fo has been ostracized by the "social" media, like the TV, for his ideas and
message. He is manifestly a Marxist. His art is both beautiful and intellectual.
Surely he is not a scientist. So, I conclude, there's a way to be intellectual even
without a scientific method.
That's why I see artists as (also) intellectual. Their visions are not different by
the intuitions of creative scientists (in fact, we agree that scientists are
artists). If their technique of refining and sharing those intuitions is not the
scientific method, it's not completely their fault. They use to investigate aspects
of reality that scientific method can't observe. And use to communicate those aspects
of reality by means of different languages.
Indeed E=MC2 is a great explanation of reality. But when I watch Munch's "The
scream":
http://www.museumsnett.no/nasjonalgalleriet/munch/eng/innhold/fullsize/ngm00939.html
I get another important explanation of reality. The anguish and the fear this
picture communicates are maybe the best explanation of the evil human beings can
produce. Even if this is not the author's exact purpose. It also depends on the
observer.
Up to now, I think I have showed that art is able to investigate and communicate
aspects of reality that science can't even see. Our disagreement is that you grant
the "status" of intellectual merely to those patterns created according to a
methodology.
> 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:
> 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!
>
> ROG:
> Yes. This is the crux of our disagreement. I mentioned that "take a small
> piece of DQ and put it in a coded and socially shareable form" was a decent
> definition of a meme. Of course memes are not necessarily intellectual. I
> think that your definition is rampant with non-intellectual processes.
> According to your definition, the Hippy movement, laws, commandments,
> dancing, cries of beasts, and even simple childish requests for cookies are
> intellectual patterns. IMO you need to differentiate intellectual patterns
> from other social patterns and from other types of Art. I did so via the
> methodology.
>
As said, IMO methodology is a tool for intellectual patterns maintenance and
refining, maybe not necessary for intellectual patterns creation. However, also the
techniques of artists are methods. Usually they try, they make drafts, then they
perform, when they think they can communicate.
You ask me to differentiate intellectual patterns from social patterns. IMO social
patterns have the original basic purpose to improve the possibilities of the
biological individuals; they are made of those emotions which make it valuable the
social interaction among biological beings. Intellectual patterns have the basic
purpose to increase the knowledge of universe; they are made of a socially shareable
code and make it possible the communication of a description of reality.
I take some of your examples:
A childish request for cookies is a "thing". It is social if it's merely a request
for the mother's attention. It is biological if it's real hunger. It is intellectual
if the kid is a genius and well knows how many calories has to eat everyday in order
to survive.
Laws are "things". They are social if they have been created to solve social
problems, in order to prevent a social discontent, or merely increase the government
popularity. They are intellectual if they have been created in order to assure the
application of human rights as necessary basis for intellectual development, despite
of the social emotions measured by polls.
Dance is a "thing". It is social if it's a way to spend a night together. The Swans
Lake of Cajkovskij has something of intellectual, as it communicates the state of
mind of two lovers (Sigfried and Odette), and, definitely, it communicates socially
the concept of love. The Swans Lake is also beautiful, so, according to Platt's point
(?), it has an high value independently by its eventual intellectual message.
According to my point, its beauty is strictly related to its ability to share
socially its meaning, so I don't need a fifth level to appreciate its beauty, even if
I'm not necessarily interested by the message. Of course, its beauty can't be
scientifically measured, that means that science is not the whole intellect, as it's
an imperfect tool for the investigation of reality.
I could go on....
> Your point that "This is both ART and SCIENCE!" is also interesting, and
> though I agree that they both CAN share these characteristics, I suspect that
> this may be overly restrictive to Art. For example, must ART be social and
> shared? At first I thought so, but now I wonder. What do you think, Marco,
> must Motorcycle Maintenance be "coded and socially shareable"?
It CAN (not MUST) be social and shared. To be "Social and Shared" is not to be
"Socially shareable"! However, Motorcycle Maintenance is a "thing". It is social if I
use to drive my motorcycle in order to improve my biologic possibility of movement,
and if simply "I like to drive it" with my fellows bikers. It is intellectual when I
use it as a metaphor or example of RiTual, in order to explain how universe works.
Pirsig did it, and shared socially his insights by means of a book. A novel.
Artistic, I guess. I think you have listened about it... :-)
>....it appears you are trying to force art
> into the INTELLECTUAL LEVEL by defining both as "take a small piece of DQ and
> put it in a coded and socially shareable form. This is both ART and SCIENCE!"
> This is the same mistake Pirsig attributed to the Greeks.
IMO, as said, this was not the mistake of the Greeks. Plato's point about art was
that it is "mimesis" (imitation) of reality. Reality is truth, and art is merely its
copy. Aristotle's point was that it's possible to reach the truth by means of the
logic.
In both visions, the Good becomes a frill. At the contrary, I believe that RT is the
activity of creating static patterns. Intellectual static patterns are real like the
reality
they represent, and not merely an imitation: this has been the Plato's mistake. Logic
(and science) is a good tool (not truth itself) for the investigation of some
aspects of reality: this has been the mistake of Aristotle. IMO the art of painters
and dramatists can be a good tool for the investigation of other aspects of reality.
IMO There's no hierarchy of science over art, or of art over science, within the
intellectual level.
> However, the discussion has greatly improved my understanding and led to
> substantial refinements of my views. How about you?
Me too. Really, really a lot.
In the end, I comment your summary:
1) Art and intellectual methodology share a common term of Quality. Both are
high quality endeavers.
Agree
2) Intellectual pursuits are artistic, however, artistic pursuits are not
necessarily intellectual.
if artistic pursuits are not intellectual, they are IMO probably social (the
Colosseum), or mystic. Even scientific pursuits can be non intellectual. It happened
when science was in the hand of society. A lot of technology today is still socially
focused: Microsoft and IBM are not exactly cultural foundations.
3) Intellectual patterns are of necessity socially shareable, but this is not
their defining characteristic.
Agree. It's a necessary but insufficient condition. The defining characteristic is in
their purpose: they must be created/used in order to investigate reality.
4) Intellectual patterns are differentiated by their methodology, which I
will not repeat unless someone really needs to see it again.
I substitute method with technique (IMO method is a technique). Technique is a tool
to refine patterns. It can distinguish good patterns from bad patterns. Method does
not create patterns.
5) Einstein was an intellectual and an Artist.
Agree. Or, better, I'd say he was an intellectual and a scientist. And an RTist.
6) Picasso was an Artist, but not necessarily an intellectual.
He was not a scientist (for what I know). But he was a reality investigator. I don't
identify science with intellect. So he was also intellectual. RTist and Artist.
7) This is in no way demeaning to Picasso.
Also my interpretation is in no way demeaning Picasso.
tks
Marco.
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