> JENNIFER KELLY: Here are a few thoughts about your question. Which was...
>
> How can we be so sure that intellect comes after society on the ladder of
> evolution? It seems to me that in the first instances, moving from matter
>
> to cells to organisms to society, there was always a convergence, a
> networking, a joining of many to form one. But Pirsig's last step, from
> society to intellect, seems to me to be moving in the opposite direction.
>
> DMB says, I think there are lots of reasons to be sure that "intellect
> comes after society on the ladder of evolution". But the most compelling
> thing is Pirsig's explaination of the 20th century as a battle between the
> social and intellectual levels. The history of this struggle is a major
> theme throughout the book. You know, the breakdown of Victorian society
> and all that.
> Pirsig even says that this takeover was an evolutionary leap, no less
> important than the "day" our ancestors left the oceans for dry land. So we
> think of the intellect as being on the top rung because it has most
> recently arrived. Its the newest level of reality. Social level values
> have been around much, much longer than that. Its about the order of
> appearance. And this idea isn't arbitrary or merely convenient, it
> corresponds quite well with our scientific understanding of these things.
> Its a framework designed to explain all the known "facts" of the world.
> Well, that sounds awfully grand, but you know what I mean.
>
> As to the question of intellect apparently "moving in the opposite
> direction", I'd say it only SEEMS that way because of an un-stated
> assumption; that intellectual values only exist in the minds of
> individuals. Isn't that the idea behind the difference in direction?
> Intellect is solitary, the opposite of networking and convergence?
> Individuality instead of unity? Pirsig goes after this isolated subject
> idea as a SOM mirage, a symptom of a flawed metaaphysic.
> And on top of that< I'm not even sure is right to assume that cells
> evolving into organisms is a jump in levels, I mean cells are clearly
> olders and simpler, but they're both on the biological level. As I see it,
> evolution doesn't lead to unity so much as higher and more complex
> patterns of organization. It leads to a greater and greater variety of
> patterns within the levels, and each level represents a leap forward in
> freedom and capacity to create those variations. Its like reality is
> filling in with more and more detail as it evolves.
>
> JK wrote
> As often happens, in asking the question I may have stumbled upon the
> answer. I'll give my ideas, and still submit this in order to see if
> anyone
> else has a different answer. I now think that the answer may lie in the
> whole business about cultural relativism. Intellect allows for the value
> patterns of many societies to be joined and transcended.
>
> DMB says, yea, I think that's right. Social values could never be
> questioned or doubted without the intellect. Its job is to improve and
> liberate society, just as society liberated and improved things for
> biology, etc. And Pirsig mentions Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations as an
> example of the kind of idea you're describing here. Like today's UN, it
> was meant to organize "the patterns of many societies". Its all part of
> that 20th century theme song.
>
> Thanks for your time.
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