Bo, All
Bo
> I had a small epiphany here when I suddenly understood. You want
> SOM to be one of many possible mental constructs ...and that it is
> this greater mind realm that is your Q-Intellect! Isn't that so?
3WD
Yes, very close, except for the "mind" stuff which I will return to latter.
Pirsig spends the better part of two books claiming that "SOM" is the
dominant intellectual premise that underlies the bulk of present day
Western philosophy. You must accept this premise or you wouldn't
propose that the MoQ's intellect ='s SOM or SOL. And right now, at this
instant, if we talking about Western society your claim is right, is
closer to reality, than mine.... ...or Pirsig's MoQ.
It's not that I "want SOM to be one of the many possible..constructs" of
the intellect. It is because, hopefully, it is just "an intellectual
contruct". Because if SOM is the only possible intellectual construct or
"the law of the intellect" then Pirsig has done nothing. He claims that
DQ and the four static levels cover all of reality and if the MoQ (which
must be some sort of a static pattern of value) is not an intellectual
one and it cannot come to dominate that level, What progress has been
made? But I'm hopeful that your claim that SOM is the "ONLY POSSIBLE
INTELLECTURAL CONSTRUCT" misses one of the major points Pirsig's is
trying to make. The point is that there are worldviews other than SOM...
... and though these may not be dominant they may well be BETTER and can
evolve to dominant. Two of those worldviews he points to are Zen and
Pragmatism. Pragmatism, being in the Western tradition, must have
(according to Pirsig premise) a SOM base. That claim cannot
automatically be made for Zen. Erin just posted this quote from "Thank
You and OK, An American Zen Failure in Japan" by David Chadwick.
> He wrote "Asked why Zen was brought from
> India to China, master Zhao Zhou replied, 'The oak tree in the garden'
Though I have not read the book, Chadwick's website indicates that after
years of studying Zen in America he went to Japan to continue his
studies only to be told that his efforts to study Zen in America had
been a waste of time. Why was it a failure ? I'll hazard a guess.
Because just like me his dominant underlying worldview was/is? SOM. And
my SOM worldview does not readily provide any meaningful way to
interpret the Zen statements such as the one above. But just because I
do not grasp the meaning can I reject it out of hand as not being a
possible indication of intellect? I can't understand Einstein's or
Bohr's mathematics. Should I reject them also? I don't think so.
So accept, for the moment, the possibility that there are two
worldviews, SOM and Zen, both which have evolved over thousands of years
to the present. Both have been guiding forces in the cultural
development of millions of people with all kinds of social and cultural
artifacts to prove their existence. How is it that you can claim, or,
How is it you can make the distinction that one rises to the
intellectual level and one does not? IMHO you can not. So once there are
two schools of thought that rise to the intellectural level, What stops
there from being more? And once there are more, how does one select one
to follow? Pirsig suggests that this is a process of evolving
intellectural patterns or changing worldviews that starts at the fringes
of society and is a slow, one by one, individual thing that happens over
time but in the end the best one will win out. And that this process is
a GOOD one.
Back to the "mind" "mental" thing you keep trying to introduce into my
take on the intellect. As I have said before the MoQ "intellect" does
not equal "mind","minds", "mental" etc. If I were to approach the most
skilled surgeon in the world with Bill Gate's bankroll and ask tell him
the money is all his if only he will split "the mind" from "the body" I
would never have to pay him a penny.
It is not possible because this split is a philosophic one not a
biological one. And it is a false philosophical one because it does not
reflect the underlying "oneness" of the biological reality. And it is
one of the false dichotomies that are part and parcel of SOM's errant
thinking that the MoQ is trying to correct.
Even though trying to come up with "the laws of the intellect" below
sound like "mind" or products of "mind" or "minds" they are not. They
are an attempt to describe the "laws" the intellect uses to sum the
experience of the values from the whole system. Or the sum of "laws" for
the evolution of all experiences.
> The intellectual level's duty, its moral obligation, what it "ought to do",
> for itself and the whole is:
>
> 1. Use all its capabilities (sensation, perception, reason, logic, intuition,faith,
> feelings, emotions, memory etc) to continually identify patterns of value at all
> levels, uncover their interrelationships, and develop laws that best explain them.
> 2. Direct the use of this information such that it encourages all patterns
> to evolve for the greater good of all.
> 3. Primary of these 'greater goods' is freedom and those certain
> inalienable rights that all patterns must have.
> 4. The nature of laws within a dynamic intellectual system is that to be
> "good", they must all be considered provisional.
Bo
> This is the end of the MoQ and one may as well fold the tent and return to
> SOM (as Platt says) ...of which this view is part and parcel.
3WD
Why?
Pirsig
" Dynamic Quality is a stream of quality events going on for ever and
ever, always the cutting edge of the present. But in the wake of this
cutting edge are static patterns of value. These are memories, customs
and patterns of nature. The reason there is a difference between
individidual evaluations of quality is that although Dynamic Quality is
constant, these static patterns are different for everyone because each
person has a different static pattern of life history. Both the Dynamic
Quality and the static patterns influence his final judgement. That is
why their is some uniformity among individual value judgements but not
complete uniformity." pp SODV paper 12-13
How does the acceptance (which Pirsig does above) of the reality that
"these static patterns (of which intellect is one) are different for
everyone because each person different static pattern of life history",
destroy the MoQ?
Bo
> The static patterns are determined for the
> reason of their value, they can't be dynamic simultaneously
3WD
I guess I would phase this " static patterns are determined by their
values" but disagree completely with "they can't be dynamic
simutaneously".I would say just the opposite that "that they are
simultaneously dynamic."
So my take would read something like:
The static patterns are determined by their values which are
simutaneously stable and dynamic.
The old saying about not being to step in the same river twice sums my
take on this up.
Bo
> My proposal of MoQ as a "movement out of intellect"
3WD
I agree that the MoQ proposes a "movement beyond or out of intellect"
Its just that proposing and getting there are two different things. I
agree that the MoQ leaves the door open by both its evolutionary and Zen
premises that a level above and beyond the intellect may exist and can
be attained. However it does not claim that the MoQ is that level.
Unfortunately we don't fully understand the four levels we're pretty
sure exist let, alone being able to fathom the values of the mystical fifth.
Nice talk'n to you again. But my guess is we're just talk past each other.
3WD
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