Jonathan and Squad
It's too bad if we inflict headaches and "unrest of mind" on each
other. Our differences are insignificant compared to the
general pursuit of Quality that we are engaged in.Yet (before Diana
rings the bell) let me have a last go at the language issue. You
wrote on Thu, 1 Oct 1998 :
> Language structure predates Greek philosophy probably by several
> thousand years. Certainly by Greek times, the major Indo-European
> languages were already well diverged, and yet all maintain the
> predicate-object structure. I don't see how Greek metaphysics could have
> much influenced European languages until the last 2-3 centuries when
> these languages began to be used for intellectual purposes. Furthermore,
> the predicate-object grammatical structure exists for other
> non-Indo-European languages (e.g. Hebrew). I think that the "Subject" of
> language is *any* subject-rock, man or computer disk. This concept must
> be fairly innate (hard-wired according to Chomsky) for it to be so
> widespread between different language groups. On the other hand, the
> "Subject" of SOM is the human mind, a concept quite different.
Of course, language and its structure is immensely older than early
Greek philosophy. If I were daft enough to believe otherwise..ugh! No,
my approach is that language was the social "carbon" that Dynamic
Quality used as a vehicle to free evolution from the Social laws, in
the same way as Inorganic carbon was the vehicle of Life. The picture
as I see it ....in broad strokes.
There must have been a time, millions of years ago,
when the proto-humans were little more than animals; living in tribes
and/or families, but without language as we know it, which is to say:
Q-intellect had not emerged! After aeons (for reasons that is a
mystery in itself) the brain's neural complexity had grown to
proportions that enabled them to use abstract symbols that could be
manipulated by rules of grammar. At first it wasn't much, nothing
like SOM's "awakening to consciousness" or the biblical "eating of
the tree of knowledge". Language was wholly "in the service" of
Society.
NB! You probably want to call this "thinking" and thinking it was,
but once we use that term some internal switch is thrown and we are
in SOM's grip. That's why I strive to describe it differently.
And over the millennia the Social level made use of this new tool to
grow ever more complex structures cemented by the common language
mediated mythology of divine origin and guidance. Yet, language was
like the sorcerer's apprentice; it knew the start formula, but not
how to stop. It facilitated improvements by spreading of knowledge
and thereby prosperity but also something unheard of before: thinkers
who used language to see themselves as independent of their
community's strictures; the IDEA of a subject self of more value than
society (other) was born. If we call it objectivization or
subjectivization is the same; the two are always in step...and the
rest is history.
With the early Greek philosophers, the social reality [of gods with a
special connection to the people] gave way to the new myth of
objectivity, truth etc, and the world as we Westerns know it was
born: Intellect had emerged. Not to instant dominance - through
the events described in LILA its struggle with Society is told, and
this goes on at a fierce pace in f ex. Islamic culture (which is our
Semitic twins) while - according to Pirsig - the East has resolved
the intellect/society conflict long ago.
Language, Intellect? What is what? The relationship is the same as
carbon atom to Biology; you can't have one without the other. And
another parallel; the carbon atom isn't life, nor is language or - if
you want - "thinking itself" Q-intellect; it is social value!
> Bo, would you then maintain that Beethoven's contributions to our world
> have no intellectual value? How about Einstein vs. Margritte? Does
> Albert always prevail, because only he reaches the morally superior
> Intellectual plane? If this is SOTAQI, then I regard it as an
> anti-Pirsigian viewpoint.
Music is the least intellectual value I can think of, but ART as
such? Wonder if that's not another Quality term like Troy's
LOVE and Lorenz' FEELING ? An art metaphysics (MoA) could perhaps be
constructed, but along with the MoL and the MoF it would be just
another footnote to Pirsig.
Bodvar
homepage - http://www.moq.org
queries - mailto:moq@moq.org
unsubscribe - mailto:majordomo@moq.org with UNSUBSCRIBE MOQ_DISCUSS in
body of email
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:35 BST