Hi Sriram, Bo, Glenn, DMB, All:
I think I understand where Bo is coming from with his SOLAQI idea, but
Sriram makes an excellent point about Pirsig's intellectual level:
> The problem with excluding mathematics, formal logic, computer languages,
> and other intellectual patterns from the intellectual level of the MOQ is
> that they won't fit anywhere else, and new "platypi" are created which
> would require assimilation by some future, better metaphysics. Pirsig
> foresaw this problem which is why he didn't narrowly define the
> intellectual level as to include only SOL, but other non-SOL intellectual
> patterns as well. The MOQ asserts that all things are either intellectual,
> social, biological, or inorganic patterns of value. They are exhaustive.
> If an encyclopedia is constructed of these four topics, nothing will be
> excluded, except of course Dynamic Quality which is not a thing or static
> pattern and cannot be included in any encylopedia. Mathematics is
> certainly not a social, biological, or inorganic pattern of value. As it
> is a static pattern and not Dynamic Quality, it must therefore be an
> intellectual pattern.
In the notes to Dan Glover's "Lila's Child," Pirsig settles the question of
whether the MOQ is included in the intellectual level by saying ". . . the
MOQ is itself a static intellectual pattern of Quality." This is confirmed
in LILA where he says, "The MOQ could be a replacement for the
paralyzing intellectual system that is allowing all this destruction to go
unchecked."
So indeed, the question for Bo's SOLAQI is where to put the MOQ
pattern or "system" if not in the intellectual level?
Be that as it may, Pirsig tends to support the SOLAQI when he writes
in LILA, "This intellectual level was screwing everything up."--a clear
statement that SOM is the intellectual level itself. But then Pirsig
seems to suggest that the intellectual level contains multi levels when
he writes, "Many forms of intellect do not have a subject-object
construction including logic itself, mathematics, and computer
programming language." Then when he says, "Intellectual is the same
as mind. It is the collection and manipulations of symbols that stand for
patterns of experience." he adds more to the confusion about the true
nature of intellectual level.
But one thing we know. There is no doubt that the intellectual level
consists of static patterns of value because ALL levels consist of static
"laws" or moral codes. At the inorganic level we find a moral code
embodied in the laws of physics, at the biological the laws of the jungle,
at the social level "the law" and that the intellectual level the laws of
logic, mathematics, computer programming languages and other
STATIC CONCEPTUAL PATTERNS OF MEANING AND
UNDERSTANDING. It is these latter laws or "ideologies" that provide
the framework or "spectacles" through which we filter the data of
experience in order to know how to act to survive. This is the level of
intellect.
Bo's point IMO is that the laws of SOM are SO DOMINANT in forming
understanding, especially the scientific pattern, that has permeated
every nook and cranny of "intellectualism" in the 20th century, that to all
intents and purposes, SOM has become THE intellectual level,
effectively squeezing out all competition. For example, where you can
find anyone today who doesn't believe in the intellectual pattern of cause
and effect? Mention to someone, especially one of DMB's professors,
that "an apple values dropping to the ground" you will be looked at as
bordering on insanity and in the case of the professor, hooted out of
class. Further, as BO pointed out, who doesn't believe "that there is an
OBJECTIVE, true, immutable reality impervious of what people may
think of it. Voila. SOM!"
So today, SOM (or SOL) is the ONLY acceptable intellectual pattern for
finding and establishing meaning and understanding. Within that
ideology, all moral matters are social in nature and thus merely
subjective and relative to individuals or cultures with no certain rights or
wrongs anywhere to be found. Who is to say that human sacrifices are
bad if in a particular culture human sacrifices are considered "good."
Who is George Bush to say terrorism is evil? After all, shouldn't we be
"sensitive" to other's views? (The fact that "it's wrong to judge" is self-
contradictory doesn't bother today's so-called intellectuals.)
As Pirsig says, "What a disaster!"
The MOQ, in contrast to the "SOM juggernaut" (Bo's wonderfully original
and accurate description) gives us a new intellectual framework (or
pattern or ideology or spectacles, however you want to phrase it) that
not only provides a better, more explanatory, more harmonious
worldview but--and this is what's most important--allows for, indeed
insists upon with its identification of Dynamic Quality--NON-
CONCEPTUAL, NON-INTELLECTUAL FORMS OF UNDERSTANDING
AND MEANING related to our direct experiences of BEAUTY, TRUTH
AND GOODNESS, i.e., QUALITY.
Sriram summed it up beautifully:
> The SOM is not discarded. The MOQ would not have the value that it does if
> it were. It says what were formerly known as objects are inorganic and
> biological patterns of value, and what were formerly known as subjects are
> now social and intellectual patterns of value. They are related through an
> evolutionary structure. The quality idea does not need to leave intellect
> because it finds a home within intellectual patterns. It's only Dynamic
> Quality which must leave intellect and not be embedded within it or any
> other static pattern.
Actually, once you agree that there's more to life than science can
explain, more than "meets the eye," you are already on the brink of
exchanging your intellectual spectacles for a new pair in which values
are seen as not just a peripheral part, but the whole thing, including the
material values science, using SOM, has discovered and that
technology has provided to our benefit.
Platt
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