On 13 Mar 2002 at 17:06, Platt Holden wrote:
> Hi Bo and Everyone:
> Like many others I have the highest regard for our Norwegian friend,
> Bo Skutvik, who, in a series of posts, has struggled to explain his
> view of Pirsig's intellectual level. I say "struggled" because he has
> admitted to a certain degree of frustration in attempting to make his
> position clear. Likewise I admit to a certain degree of bafflement as
> to exactly what Bo means when he calls the intellectual level SOL
> (Subject- Object-Logic) or SOLAQI
> (Subject-Object-Logic-As-Quality-Intellect). Part of my problem is
> that from one post to the next I forget what SOL and SOLAQI stand for,
> a not uncommon problem with acronyms.
> I think, however, with Bo's post of 10 March that I "get it." The
> intellectual level is nothing more or less than our everyday
> assumption that the world is divided into subjects and objects (mind
> and matter) with the weight of sophisticated opinion settled on
> scientistic beliefs that all arises from the material side of ledger,
> and that experiences not attributable to some material basis are just
> human-induced illusions fabricated to serve a variety of psychological
> needs. Thus, religion is considered an opiate for the masses, morals
> arise from myths, and values are matters of individual tastes.
> Objective, material, measurable "facts" comprise hard "realities" and
> "truths" while subjective, immaterial, language-embedded "ideas" make
> up malleable "theories," "conjectures" and "opinions."
Hi Platt
Yes, you have got the SOL-interpretation and I need not start shouting YES!
at the end of each paragraph. Nor is it necessary to start on finer points, how
the S/O may have had stages, your description is most accurate how it now
looks.
> Such is the essence of the intellectual level's great divide.
> Aristotelian logic, a body of rules for thinking that has proven
> immensely practical over the centuries, can work both sides of the
> aisle, depending upon the premises one starts with. Descartes, not
> Aristotle, is the primary culprit in dividing experience into
> evanescent mind and tangible matter, thus establishing Subject-Object
> Metaphysics as the intellectual underpinning of the Western realm.
Yes, Aristotle the first to lean towards the 'O' side. Plato considered ideas to
be reality while the world was a shadow, but the important point is that this
metaphysical DIVIDE came into existence - in one form with the Greeks -
maybe in another in the Middle Eastern region. Ever after it has been a S/O
see-saw, after Descartes & Co the objective definitely on top.
> Given the success of the West in creating material well-being, its way
> of viewing the world has proven its practical worth so that any other
> way, especially that promoted by fundamentalist religion, appears to
> be patently absurd. In other words, as Bo points out, S-O has VALUE,
> so much so that Western languages are rife with dualistic S-O
> assumptions that are almost impossible to see much less overcome, the
> biggest one for MOQ purposes being the assumption that morality reigns
> exclusively in the domain of personal relationships whose rules change
> from group to group, depending on who holds the power to punish at the
> moment. In the SOM objective world of hard fact, morals are
> irrelevant, being matters more of the "heart" than "mind." No one has
> ever seen a moral under a microscope. They are chimeras.
Yes the S/O divide is valuable - the highest good - and thus it "has" a moral:
the one of "objective thinking is better than subjective feeling". The messy
aspect, so eminently described below, is because the values/morals of the
lower levels are strained through intellect's filter and thereby severely
distorted. What happens in our societies is that biological value is tried
constrained by social value which in turn is constrained by intellectual value,
but as no such (inorg.bio.socio.intell.) levels exists to SOM-intellect, thus it
becomes a mess of sex n' drugs, religious brimstone and "experts" declaring
that nothing counts, there is no real value.
> So what's to be done? With the present U.S. educational system
> largely in the hands of the postmodern, political correctness crowd
> who emphasize hurt feelings over serious study of the hard lessons of
> history, not much I'm afraid. The single ray of hope is that since
> Sept. 11 academics behind ivied walls are becoming increasingly
> marginalized because the thumping sound of bodies hitting the ground
> at the base of the trade towers in Manhattan reminded everyone that
> some things aren't a matter of opinion. If ZAMM came at the right time
> in the hippie atmosphere of the 60's, then the MOQ in which "morality
> is the primary reality of the world" may find its time after the
> sudden appearance of a glaringly obvious "good vs. evil" worldwide
> conflict.
But we have acquired a new point of view and that will necessarily alter things
- ever so slowly at first but something has started to roll. If this is a new "filter"
(level) or a high intellect or a "rebel" intellect ... I will not pursue here, just say
thanks Platt.
Bo
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