Gary, 3WD and everybody:
This one is a bit long, but its full of drama and passion. Enjoy.
DMB had said:
> Overwhelming evidence? I doubt it, but if you'd care to submit some of
that
> evidence, I'm all eyes.
3WD said:
Unfortunately though, somewhere between what your "eyes" experience and
what you type and send here are either a few shorted circuits, or
possibly you're just more interested in polishing your rhetorical skills
than allowing your understanding of this issue to progress. If the
latter is the case that's call "stuckedness" possibly caused by "value
rigidity".
DMB says:
I ask for evidence and this is your answer? If I were stuck or rigid, why
would I ask for evidence? Why would I engage in a discussion with someone
who has a different view? And its pretty unreasonable to suggest that I'm
not interested in the progress of this thread. I named it and started it,
remember. Who's got a few short circuits here, huh? Your response so far is
insulting, evasive and irrational.
3WD said:
But to help you out with some "evidence" here is a suggestion. Go to
Google (I already did)...
DMB says:
Oh, I see. You assert that there is overwhelming evidence, but then have to
go looking for it once you're questioned about it. Shouldn't it be the other
way around? Once again, when pressed for an anwere you take the lazy and
cowardly way out. Why would you even be interested in a discussion forum
like this? Apparently, you get all bent out of shape and upset at mere
questions. Reminds of the guy who loved to swim, but was terrified of water.
3WD said:
I assure you the your eye's will see
dates as early as the 3 millennium BC, and that Pirsig has an explicit
quote that says "mathematics" is an intellectual pattern of values.
DMB says:
3rd millennium BC? Yea, I already knew that. I mentioned the pyramids and
stonehenge precisely because they were astromonical structures and they date
way back. To pretend I didn't already mention this is dishonest. Yes,
calculations were involved in their construction and use. The ancient
Babylonian astronomer priests were very impressive too. But all this
intelligence was used for social and religious purposes. It was tied up in a
completey different worldview than is today's mathematicians. Today's
astrologers use sophisticated calcutions to chart horoscopes too, but that's
just not what Pirsig means by intellecutal thinking. To say that this is
social level thinking is NOT to deny that they were thinking. The point is
that it was a different KIND of thinking. The point here is to make
distinctions between (at least) two different kinds of thinking, namely
social and intellectual. The point is to see the difference, to see why
Pirsig and Wilber and others make such distinctions. Why insist that its all
the same? Does anyone doubt that a major paradigm shift occured on the heals
of the scientific revolution? I think its beyond question. The questions are
about what it means and how it happened and things like that.
3WD said:
I suggest that you have your wife call Pirsig's ex-wife to get the number
for the "mental health" professionals that were involved with his treatment,
maybe she can get you a quick appointment. Have a good week, and keep a look
out for those white coats.
DMB says:
At this point I beginning to think that disagreement with you is a sign of
good mental health, not insanity.
Gary said:
> Pirsig is wrong.
3WD to Gary:
I agree, just not with your claim that "The two [intellect & social] are
evolutionarily inseparable". I think he's wrong in claiming that the social
level in exclusively human.
DMB says:
If he invented the concept, you have no choice but to accept his definition.
Otherwise you're claiming to know the contents of his mind better than he
does, which is impossible. You can disbelieve it. You can try to understand
exactly what it means. You can refuse to buy it. You can invent a concept of
your own. You have lots of options, but you can't change the meaning of a
concept he invented.
3WD said:
If one agrees with many of the ancient perennial philosophies and
current thinkers like Wilber and most recently Christopher Alexander in
the "The Nature of Order"; "mind", or "self", or some type of "internal
PoV" is present in everything, then it's easier to claim that the
emergence of the social level is pre-human.
DMB says:
Yes, everything has "some type of internal PoV". But the purpose here is to
make distinctions between various KIND of internal points of view, different
kinds of consciousness. I imagine Pirsig would say, "Yes, the most
intelligent animals have an internal ability and can therefore be considered
to have some kind consciousness, but that's just not what I mean by social
level thinking."
DMB sums it up:
I think part of the confusion about this issue stems from the fact that the
brains we all have today are pretty much the same brains our ancestors had
tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of years ago and they could
certainly "think" in some sense of the word. But to equate this with modern
scientific thinking, rationality and Pirsig's intellecual level misses the
whole point of the MOQ. The social and intellectual levels are not produced
by the brain, they're not features of biological man. They're each an
entirely different level of reality, with an evolutionary path of their own.
SOM sees all human thoughts as "intellectual", but that's only in the
broadest sense of the word. I've even heard scientists describe the making
of stone tools half a million years ago as intellectual activity. But that's
a different sense of the word. Pirsig is talking about something very
different from that. I thinks its a terrible mistake to refuse to understand
what Pirsig's distinctions mean. If we do that, we only undo his work, in
which case we might as well have never read Lila in the first place.
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