Platt, Marco and All
Platt said:
> A series of quick questions for you to consider, engendered by these
> two passages from your post of 15 Aug:
(Me in a previous message to Denis)
> > Precisely! Yet no level "recognize" any development above itself.
> > Intellect will be S/O for ever, and resist any deviation. Isn't that
> > exactly what we watch at this forum: Intellect trying to make the
> > MoQ toe its line? Intellect (Reason) is the highest good, but not
> > the end of the line. We won't become irrational if transcending it,
> > no more than we can become disembodied or asocial.
> My question is: As a general principle would be correct to state that
> whatever we recognize and give a name to, such as "subject" and
> "object," can only be accomplished from a level higher than what is
> recognized and named?
Yes, only from a higher/outside point of view can anything be seen -
as an entity. Not only visually, but treated in whatever fashion. But I
must again stress the point that "give a name to" isn't Q-intellect,
rather the rise out of the myth into the region of reason (the
scientific approach).
> In other words, is it correct to assume that the existence of a meta-
> intellect is necessary in order for us to recognize and discuss Q-
> intellect (reason)?
Yes, and the clue is the Q-intellect which is considerably reduced
compared to its SOM counterpart - mind - which is impossible to
escape.
> If so, doesn't this suggest that we are already capable of operating
> at a higher level than SOM and do so whenever we intellectualize about
> intellect?
Right, and again the crux is the revised Q-intellect. There have
been some hints to a possible 5th level, all in the super-something
vein ..supercomputation...web of minds ...etc. (I see that John
Beasley is into that high-falutin stuff), but this is not the
development IMO.
But before going on there is this nagging question: Do I deviate
from Pirsig's MoQ with my out-of-intellect insistence? His is that
SOM is one intellectual pattern and the MoQ another and I am not
comfortable if I peddle an interpretation that goes against him, yet
it DOES solve the impossible logical knot that the MoQ is a part of
a lesser part of itself. Now, a "S/O-intellect with the Q-idea a 5th
level" creates another logical peculiarity; this time not a knot rather
a loop: IT IS ITSELF, but that is consistent in my opinion.
Admittedly it thereby leaves the notion of a common ground where
it can prove itself, but isn't that what we see? Pirsig starts with the
claim that everything is value.He goes to great lengths to
demonstrate it and his arguments are convincing, but there is no
conceivable scientific experiment that can prove it ....naturally,
because SOM-as-intellect won't have any "development". No level
ever have and tries to smother all such tendencies.
Having been swayed by Pirsig's arguments (or having had some
"Phaedrus experience" of one's own) and accepted the Quality
premises one is in a different "universe". There are those who
comes to this discussing declaring that Pirsig has overlooked the
obvious observer/world problem or they point to the map/terrain
simile or - like Denis - that all effort is in vain: it's just words. I
probably drive them nuts by my ...if you have accepted the MoQ
premise (S/O not THE fundamental divide) you can't afterwards use
this against the MoQ!
> The reason I ask is a growing supicion on my part that we Pirsigians
> may already be on a higher level than the Intellectual. Or, perhaps
> more likely, my ego has expanded to encompass an even larger sphere
> than usual.
Yes, SOM (intellect) wants it all to be psychologized. Anyway it's
a long haul.
................................ MARCO.......
wrote:
> one of the ideas of Bo has always been that the MOQ is a groping fifth
> level, as it's able to *contain* the SOM, while the SOM is not able of
> containing the Q-idea.
> I've already refuted this point, few months ago on the other forum. I
> wrote (to Bo):
> << In fact, Bo, when you argue that it's impossible to put the MOQ
> idea within the logic as it's impossible for a box to contain itself,
> you are just using logic! So, if you also are inside the box, how can
> you talk about what's outside? This is only apparently a paradox: the
> image of the "box" is valid only (maybe) at the inorganic level.
We have discussed this before Marco, haven't we? My concession
to your view is that the Q-idea IS an intellectual pattern, but in the
process of "starting on a purpose of its own". Naturally it will use
logic (ability to reason correctly) as all lower levels's values are at
the disposition of the highest (your own argument a while back).
And yes, how can the "weak dynamic force" escape any level (box)
not least how Life grew from Matter?
> For example, the "Desktop" of my PC contains all the software, the
> "c:\windows" directory included. In it, I find that the desktop! I can
> map my hard drive in many ways, and all the ways can be good maps. You
> could say that my Desktop contains only "links" to the real
> objects.... but also these "real" objects are links to something that
> is in some way supported by the hard disk. And if you go more and more
> deep to study this phenomenon, you can only find an incomprehensible
> array of "0" and "1".
No, I am the least person to speak of your desktop just being links.
This is an excellent image of the MoQ's different levels. The
inorganic 0-1 goes up through the different "shells" to end up as
icons and at the next shell as ...???
> In few words, I think that if we claim that we can *see* the SOM,
> while the SOM is blind to us, and thus we are on a superior level, we
> are just hyperbolizing our intellectual patterns. We can well describe
> the SOM, and the SOM can well describe the MOQ (as Struan
> demonstrates), on our respective (inevitably failing) viewpoints. IMHO
> the SOM-MOQ struggle is completely intellectual.... and we are not still winning.
See my reply to Platt about the logic knot ...and also about
"superiority".
Thanks to you both.
Bo
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