From: Joseph Maurer (jhmau@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Tue Sep 28 2004 - 17:42:33 BST
On 24 sept 2004 3:06 PM Scott writes to Joe:
[Joe said:] I would like to try to apply the use of intellect to the essay on moq.org written by Matt Kundert. IMO Matt questions Pirsig's motivations in making a distinction between Philosophy and Philosophology. If I understand you correctly you could say that the social level has an intellectual part which produces philosophology which Matt shows to be quite creative. The intellectual part of the intellectual level creates philosophy which is creative in a different way.
{Scott:] I don't think this works, since philosophology is an intellectual activity, that is, it is a fourth-level human examining the history of philosophy, and thinking about it. (Though I do agree with Matt that it can be creative.) The real question to be answered is how the Axial Age came about (the time around 500 BC when the Greeks, Indians, and others started philosophizing). The best discussion of this I know of can be found in Owen Barfield's "Saving the Appearances". What he points out, though, is that the philosophy changes as consciousness changes. Hence what is needed (and he supplies) is a history of consciousness, rather than a history of ideas, which latter is what philosophology studies. (He also addresses the development of SOM about 400 years ago).
Hi Scott and all:
[Joe] i think you are focusing too narrowly on one aspect of evolution. The value of Pirsig's emphasis on evolution is that a child can know what is real. It is as impossible for the inorganic to produce the organic, or the organic to produce the social, or the social to produce the intellectual as for the inorganic to produce the intellectually aware sentient. Once intellect is in the inorganic, so also is social which produces intellect and organic which produces social. IMO the order proceeds through all the levels. In the apprehension of the social level, the social-intellectual is apprehended. Evolution can stop at any one of the levels, or never start..
[Joe] my statement about Mt. Everest is an emphasis on awareness in the inorganic level. Is Gaia subject to morality? Can the sun be in error? Do groups of galaxies war on other groups of galaxies?
[Joe] SQ (inorganic) is composed of three forces, organic, social, intellectual. In their independent manifestation they become levels, but always in conjunction with the other two forces. IMO the level is identified by the center of gravity of the predominant force. In attaching a degenerate-mystical word to the levels I use 'purpose' for the organic force, 'existence' (order) for the social force, 'unfinished s/o' for the intellectual force. Mysticphysics acknowledges this three in one relationship. IMO 'creative thinking' does not describe the hitter batting a ball for a home run for average. I don't know if you could construct a machine to do that for 20 years.
Joe
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