From: David Morey (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Mon Sep 27 2004 - 19:48:15 BST
Hi Scott
I care alot actually. I entirely see your case, given the below
I think you also see Pirsig's. As you seem to realise
Pirsig realises that once you start to talk about
intellect the whole question of levels, particulars,
& universals come into play. I agree that to understand
both cosmic evolution and the creation of levels you need
to think about intellect too, as well as patterns, values, dynamic
change, etc. But to me it is quite clear that Pirsig wants to
keep it simple for as wide an audience as possible. Hence
he sticks to the single term of quality that beautifully contrasts
to quantity and its association with pure SOM. His first
task is to defeat dualism, to underline the importance of
underlying unity/holism. As you say below at bottom there
is an undifferentiated unity where intellect has not emerged,
or anything else, pure Nothing. Pirsig then wants to describe
the levels of SQ and he makes the 4th the intellectual level.
This is fair and clear enough, where the SQ products/patterns
on the 4th level are intellectual. I would not argue with this in as far
as it goes. Now what you are doing is unpacking the relationship
between SQ and DQ across all the levels. If you do this, and yes
it goes deeper, something Pirsig chooses not to do for good reason,
you would be right to say that at level 1 there must be intellect of type 1
that is active and valuing and using some sort of universal
as a comparison/standard. And so on to the 4th level where
we have 4th level intellect at its dynamic work. Holistically, we might like
to say, as you do, that there is something in common between the sort
of intellect operating at all 4 levels, i.e. a cosmic intellect. That I
agree
with. Perhaps I am just not argumentative. I am happy to use the term
cosmic intellect in your sense, but also 4th level intellect in Pirsig's
sense although he really restricts it, generally, to 4th level intellectual
products or SQ patterns as that is what he wishes to explain
-in terms of levels containing patterns. I think Pirsig does this to keep it
simple.
Perhaps we can adopt cosmic intellect and level 1(or 2 or 3 or 4) intellect
to
explain what we mean. I have no objection to cosmic intellect,
but not sure about DMB? Pirsig's approach does at least stop
us thinking that electrons or DNA or plants or animals have ideas
in exactly the same way humans do, but I also think that there would
be something in common about the capacity of values, and therefore
judgement, to occur on all these levels. The danger with Scott's approach
is that it can start to look like SOM again (exactly what DMB starts to
do with Scott's idea, i.e. asking is it SOM again) if you have not already
clearly shut out SOM as I accept Scott has. It has to be clear that our
holistic
metaphysics contains no aspects that are falling towards the poles
of only mind-like or only matter-like. In MOQ everything has quality,
value, causal reality. As for choice? Well where there is awareness there
is choice and vice-versa. But where there is deep and old SQ, well
maybe things get a bit dim and sleepy, and the same again occurs with little
deliberation (i.e. intellect).
Thanks both, good discussion.
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Roberts" <jse885@earthlink.net>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Monday, September 27, 2004 3:30 PM
Subject: Re: MD A bit of reasoning
> David M et al,
>
> Naturally I reject the charge that I am being unfair to Pirsig. I think he
> made a serious mistake, and that this mistake has serious moral
> consequences. When SOM came along in the 17th century, it moved the
> concepts of quality, value, and morality from being all-pervasive to being
> just subjective, i.e., human. But it also did the same with intellect. In
> classical and medieval philosophy, nature (the inorganic and biological)
> was value-full and idea-full. Pirsig made the correction with quality, but
> not intellect.
>
> Now I'm not claiming that pre-SOM philosophy got everything right, but to
> restore Quality but not Intellect just makes no sense. Something has value
> if and only if its value is appreciated. Something is moral if and only if
> there is choice. An isolated thing has no value. Its value only exists in
> the thing's relations and functionality, which are universals. In short,
> Quality and Intellect are two facets of the same thing. In our experience,
> both value and intellect only seem to occur in humans, though one can also
> see appreciation of value in higher mammals. For us to think that value
> exists in rocks and earthworms is a bit of a leap of faith, but a little
> reflection shows its plausibility. That is to recognize instinct and laws
> of nature as supplying the context for appreciation and choice. But again,
> these are intellectual processes. Without the universals, and the judgment
> of how well the particulars fulfill their roles in universals, there is no
> value. So it takes no more of a leap of faith to consider Intellect as
> all-pervasive, as much as Quality, especially when a little thought shows
> they are identical.
>
> So why does Pirsig not see this? The charitable view, which may well be
> correct, is that it just didn't occur to him. But there is a
presupposition
> in Lila that wouldn't allow it anyway. That is the interpretation of
> mysticism that to transcend means going beyond language and thought.
Beyond
> intellect. Hence, someone indoctrinated in this way is going to do what
> Pirsig did: assign intellect solely to SQ, as something to be transcended.
>
> Now to the consequences. As I've tried to explain, this interpretation of
> mysticism is a misleading one. It arose because many mystics have said
that
> their experience is beyond all concepts, is indescribable, etc. Well, this
> is no doubt partially true. One can't read a book and thereby become
> enlightened. But you can't read a book to learn how to ride a bicycle
> either. Nor can most experiences be described, such as being in love, or
> what it is like to see a patch of blue. One can only refer to them and
> count on one's interlocutor to have had the same experience. Franklin
> Merrell-Wolff at some point says the same about mystical experience. A
> community of mystics would have no problem communicating. But there is
also
> the claim that what is experienced is prior to all conceptualizing. Well,
> this is no doubt also true. But what it leaves out is that *there is
> conceptualizing*. That is, while the Ground of Being (or Be(com)ing, or
> whatever) may be said to be prior to all division, it is nothing without
> all that division. The two (the formless and form) are the same
> (non)-thing, a contradictory identity. But as soon as one has form one has
> value and intellect. To put it in mythical terms, all reality is created
by
> God's conceptualizing. Hence the error of the "go-beyond-intellect" school
> is to treat intellect as just being about reflecting on what exists. It is
> also the source of what exists.
>
> The unfortunate consequences of the conventional interpretation of
> mysticism is a tendency to spurn the intellect. No doubt, our current
> intellects are faulty. But to reject it for some ideal beyond intellect is
> to go in the wrong direction. It tends to result in falling into Wilber's
> pre/trans fallacy. But consider the last two of the Buddhist 8-fold path:
> concentration and meditation. What these do is discipline and train the
> intellect. The basic characteristic of our intellect is the S/O divide,
the
> ability to detach an observer from an observed and reflect on it. Now
> granted that there is no absolute division (that would be SOM), this
> detachment is what makes intellect possible. And meditation is the
practice
> of strengthening that detachment. Therefore, Zen works, but by
transforming
> intellect, not by going beyond it. Of course, one has gone beyond our
> everyday, SOM-drenched intellect. But if that is all that intellect can
be,
> one has fallen into the error of thinking that evolution has stopped.
>
> There is a more general moral question, though, and that is how we
consider
> intellect in general, never mind those few who are mystically inclined.
I'm
> kind of surprised that in Lila and in this forum there is very little
> attention paid to intellect itself. Well, in Lila there wouldn't be
room --
> it is already a full-length book without going into it, except to make the
> valid point that intellect trumps the social, and discussion around it.
But
> there is no discussion along the lines of "what is intellect", in fact in
> LC, Pirsig says he purposely did not go into it, on the grounds that those
> who read Lila know what it is. In a sense he is correct, but in another
> sense, we don't really know. The unique difference between intellect and
> the other levels is that intellect can reflect on itself. That means it
can
> be self-evolving. It is DQ and SQ all right here available to us to think
> about, but nobody seems to care. I find that perplexing.
>
> - Scott
>
>
> > [Original Message]
> > From: David Morey <us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk>
> > To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
> > Date: 9/26/2004 12:13:31 PM
> > Subject: Re: MD A bit of reasoning
> >
> > DM: Nice debate, DMB defends Pirsig well and I think Scott
> > is unfair on Pirsig overall but may have something in what
> > he says in terms of how we may try to understand DQ.
> >
> > DMB: The mystical reality is undivided, but intellect and language are
> ALL
> > ABOUT
> > divisions.
> >
> > DM: You see if there is division from the beginning -ontologically,
> > i.e. before human experience, or in pre-human experience,
> > or in the story we tell of the evolution of levels, division
> > into light & dark, or proton/electron, then is there intellect and a
> > form of language as you say. SQ seems to imply universals or ideas,
> > because SQ -from the beginning, means repetition, some kind
> > of tendency or disposition as McWatt says discussing Popper.
> > DQ implies openness, choice, possibility but the emergence of
> > SQ implies a commitment or value or re-expression of some
> > form that has become established, the universe has some how
> > SIGNED-up to electron/positron and has not gone for
> > another possibility such as sour-tron/sweet-tron you could
> > perhaps imagine.
> >
> >
> >
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