Bo and group
Well, Bo, despite our intellectual conflicts I'm glad to see you have anticipated my post just of few minutes. So, I rearrange mine according to your one.
A couple of days of silence (Dhyana, if you want). I think I needed it, maybe we all. It has been useful to refine my "4th principle". Many have suggested to change it, I will post soon about.
Meanwhile, a brief note to Bo.
BO
Sorry for causing you such frustration,
MARCO
And let me sorry for my furious reply... Sometimes I follow my .... sentiments... and write this kind of furious posts, just to shout my (intellectual) pain. In this case, my frustration (as you call it) has been triggered by two or three terms (ridicolous, impossible conclusion...). Especially "conclusion".. as what you have questioned was not my conclusion, it was the starting point!
BO
but I really thought 3WD
asked for a definition of Intellect when he wrote
> > > If in a commonsense way the moral systems of the MoQ are:
> > > inorganic ='s "laws of nature"
> > > organic ='s "laws of the jungle"
> > > social ='s "the law"
> > > intellectual = [Blank]
> > > Why did Pirsig not tie some name like these to this level? Or did
> > > he somewhere and I miss it? But if he didn't what are some of the
> > > possibilities? The best candidate?
...so why so exasperated?
M
Indeed, many posts were following the thread of a definition of Intellect. As it was not my main interest, I did not enter the discussion about the law of laws and so on (its conclusion -Jonathan's actually-, Intellect=Philosophy, IMO works well)
I don't know what really Dave was asking for (Dave?), but the part of the question you don't quote (the previous Pirsig's passage from Lila) was IMO totally inappropriate as starting point for a discussion on a definition of the levels. The "laws" Pirsig suggests are not definitions. Scott immeditaely saw that the disagreement was about that, and my answer to him had this "incipit":
"My [previous] post was just to investigate what Pirsig says about the 4th-on3rd triumph ".
The whole disagreement has been then built just around this small term: Triumph.
It seems to me that Pirsig talks of triumph as a *definitive* freedom *from* the previous level, that becomes immediately a freedom *of* ... doing something else. The "Law of Jungle" states that life is preserved by a balance between living beings. And it is when the "Law of Jungle" gets a solid application that finally biology -that was of course already existing since a very long time before- becomes definitively leader of evolution. And freedom *from* becomes freedom *of*.
In this sense, life per se -or whatever we want to take as a "definition" of biological level- is not a triumph over matter/energy -or whatever we want to take as a "definition" of the inorganic level. Similarly, IMO Pirsig correctly suggests human rights as the set of laws that, once solidly applied, make it possible for intellect to become *definitively* leader of evolution. And it started happening during the last century. Not "ridicously" recently, simply recently. Ok, sorry, I have already explained my point.
BO
Platt has already started a dispute with
you and has pointed to the salient points
M
Actually, my exasperation is that those who have been attacking me -Platt especially- don't *want* to realize that they are simply questioning Pirsig using Pirsig, and IMO are falling in embarrassing contradictions. Questioning the MOQ is well legal and good, but, please, admit that.
Platt is IMO very clever in attacking those that don't have a rational basis for human rights, but fails to see that even if they don't have a rational basis for that, they are on the right side. Unaware of that, irrationally if you want. But much more wrong would be to dismiss the importance of human rights and individuality in the definitive development of intellectual patterns, only 'cause there is not a rational basis outside the MOQ. The MOQ, offering a rational basis, *confirms that* and *clarifies why* it is right to stand for human rights.
Another point of disagreement is that I find it wrong and even to a certain extent dangerous the equation "sentiments are social; rationality is intellectual". IMO it is defective. I will be back on it as soon as possible.
BO
so I'll just comment the ones below:
> MARCO:
> Great. The ONLY mean. And David B also is the only one understanding
> my impossible conclusion. Could be, he will let me know. Up to now,
> he has apparently kept safe this point for himself. That solipsist!
Er ..I meant that DMB is the one to understand the impossibility of
your conclusion.
M
Yeah, I had understood that, but I fail to see where does he state that. Still waiting.
BO:
>MARCO
> Evidences please? About impossible conclusions you could be my master.
> Did Socrates triumph over Athens? Did Galileo triumph over Rome?
First an aside. Note that you see Socrates' story as an "Intellect vs
Society" case. Good, but note that ZAMM presents this as the
coming of SOM. Everybody draw this conclusion - even Pirsig - yet
when I want it formalized as Q-INTELLECT=SOM, nobody agrees
or even reacts .....except 3WD!
M:
I've never been in agreement with Q-INTELLECT=SOM. I think that Aristotle -and not Socrates- puts the basis of SOM. Therefore, Socrates was IMO intellectual and not SOMish.
BO
Isn't the lesson that Socrates triumphed over Athens and Galileo
over Rome? (the Catholic Church).
M:
No. Maybe their ideas, many years later, carried on by others. Socrates has not been condemned for his thoughts, but 'cause he was sharing it with his young students, Plato among them. How many Socrates have suffered the same treatment, and we don't even know about them? I think that freedom of assembly and speech would have helped him and others to develop intellect much more faster and effectively. If today no one kills me if I say that Berlusconi is a criminal it is thanks to human rights. This can be considered a triumph, given that 60 years ago saying that Mussolini was a criminal was like committing a suicide. I'd not call a *triumph* to die for my ideals .. even if it is noble, and even if my ideals will "win" after 2000 years....
BO
>MARCO
> And can you *rationally* understand a culture, *mathematically*
> predict the behavior of a people, *rationally* convince them to
> eventually change their behavior? Good luck. Communists were convinced
> of that. I feel perfectly fine if only my society lets me live in
> peace.
Phew! my turn to get exasperated. Of course intellect's rational
value cannot grasp q-social value, that's the very point of the level
struggle. Social value looks like sheer evil from Intellect's p.o.v. (the
Sep 11 events f.ex.) and is what the Quality Metaphysics is
supposed to remedy with its metaview ... which is why I want it to
be something "out of Intellect, but not at home in Intellect". Our
peculiar mutual misunderstanding is due to two things:
1) Your understanding of modern states as as q-social value
dominated. Italy is a rational-intellect governed country, while
Athens of old was steeped in its old myth ...and Medieval Rome
much later in another myth, but on the verge of entereing a new
age.
M:
[about Italy as rationally governed I have terrible doubts, anyway..... ]
Uh? Pirsig says that intellect is *still struggling*. In Lila I read that the intellectual level, despite various attempts (the liberal intellectuals, Communism, the Hippies... ) has not still been able to take the control over the social level. Liberal intellectuals tried by means of objective science and forgot the role of Quality, dismissing it as subjective and therefore not existing; Communists tried by means of rational planning, and suffucated DQ; the Hippies tried by means of an alliance with biology, and "killed the parent".
Intellect is not completely leading society. It has been able very lately to gain the *freedom from*, but still hasn't decided what to do with all his freedom. Toffler or not Toffler, these processes need a great amount of time...
BO
2) Your (and many other's) understanding that q-intellect can
contain SOM-rationality and MOQ-rationality simultaneously. It's
the strange mind-intellect where SOM is one idea and the MoQ
another (see. my message for 3WD to-day)
M
On this "containing" point of I've already explained you my point that intellectual patterns are not boxes, they are maps. So they can well describe each other. Anyway, I think the disagreement between us has deeper roots. I can't explore all them now, they need too much time.
So, for the moment, let me say my traditional....
Ciao,
Marco
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