Dear Bo,
I wrote 8/3 23:38 +0100:
' The 'principle of the intellectual level' is NOT 'what the Q-Intellect is
all about', but the FIRST intellectual value 'safeguarded' (latched) by this
new type of static patterns of values.'
You replied 14/3 20:51 +0100:
'It sounds as there must be some value ahead of the first pattern to prepare
the ground for it. Wish you would provide an example.'
There sure is some value ahead of the first pattern of a level to prepare
the ground for it: DQ.
Before the foundation of the intellectual level the behavior of people
formed social patterns of values. Copying behavior that had proven
successful (in safeguarding biological group survival) from high status
group members (those most trustworthy to pass on successful practices)
created 'culture', stable ways of life.
Patterns alow for exceptions without ceasing to be a pattern. Every now and
then an individual would experience 'cosmic order' (as a pointer to DQ, see
my 9/2 19:56 +0100 posting) and deviate from social patterns of values. The
wish to repeat these 'cosmic order' experiences motivated development of
religious rituals from which the first intellectual truths could be derived,
e.g. the 'truth' that things are as they are because the Gods want them so.
People die because Gods want them to die as punishment for breaking 'cosmic
order'. Rain and food stay away, hunger occurs (seasonally and/or
occasionally) for some Divine Reason. And these 'truths' imply reflecting on
better behavior, behavior that may not have proven successful yet, but that
'logically' must be beneficial to the group given those 'truths': upholding
'cosmic order' (faithfully performing the rituals), preparing for hungry
times etc.
I agree with your vision of the intellectual level growing from the social
level by utilizing an ambiguous social pattern of values. Language may be
that ambiguous social pattern of values. Ritual is another candidate. See
Pirsig's description at the end of ch. 30 of 'Lila' and what I wrote to
David B. 4/3 23:10: 'If rituals are the link between the social and
intellectual levels, they can be understood BOTH as social patterns of
values (habits/practices that are passed on because they have proven their
value) AND as intellectual patterns
of values (a public library containing common values and information).'
Rituals and language probably developed more or less simultaneously.
Maybe the Greeks invented 'objectivity' and statically latched 'the value of
distinguishing objective from subjective', but -with Pirsig (see the end of
ch. 30 of 'Lila')- I date the start of the intellectual level much earlier:
at 50.000 - 100.000 years ago. 'For tens of thousand of years language was
solely in the service of society', but as such it should be understood
already as an intellectual pattern of values and not as a mature social
pattern of values (even though -being ambiguous- it also retained a role in
the social level). In my words to David B. of 3/3 23:31 +0100:
'I don't think that intellectual patterns of values were sufficiently
independent from social patterns of values so short after their 'birth' to
'fight' their parent level. They rather gained their independence by being
of use to social patterns of values: a social pattern of values with an
intellectual extra was more succesful than a social pattern of values
without.'
By the way: (the value of) 'reflecting' (before acting) does not imply
'self-reflecting' (even though it founds 'self-reflection'). The first
intellectual utilization of language was not 'I am/want/do' but
'God/this-or-that-force-of-nature exists/wants/does'. The realization of the
individual (!) possibility of choice between upholding or breaking 'cosmic
order' came after (and had to be enabled by) the realization that some Force
wanted/chose 'cosmic order', a Force that had more status than even the most
experienced group member. (Which in turn led the first shamans to pretend to
mediate the wants of this Force and thus enhance their social status: the
beginning of religion.)
The first 'reflecting' upon directly experienced 'cosmic order' was no more
than crude symbolic repetition of this experience by means of rituals and
primitive language. I see no parallel with Artificial Intelligence,
computers becoming intelligent by 'reflecting' on being computers.
This does NOT 'extend Intellect so far back that it excludes the social
level'. I even reserve a much longer period of history for the social level
before the start of the intellectual level then for the start of the
intellectual level until now: (3/3 23:31 +0100 to David B. again) 'the era
in which it had not given birth yet to intellectual
patterns of values: the period between the split-off of early humans from
their non-human roots (from the ancestors they share with chimps) and the
moment when homo sapiens created 'this ritual-cosmos relationship' that
Pirsig describes.'
You wrote14/3 20:51+0100:
'the stone-agers' mythology was their EXPLANATION, they UNDERSTOOD it and
REFLECTED upon it too.'
I would say 'the stone-agers' mythology was their explanation of their
experience, that's how they understood and reflected upon that experience'.
And that's exactly why I locate the stone-agers' mythology at the
intellectual level and do NOT agree with 'the value of distinguishing
objective from subjective' as founding principle of the intellectual level.
The intellectual level was founded in the stone age and not by the Greek
according to me (and Pirsig).
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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