From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Fri Jun 24 2005 - 17:20:10 BST
Bo, Mike,
--- > Paul: It seems not. I think Pirsig is saying that the manipulation
--- > of abstract symbols is to intellect as DNA is to biology. DNA is the
--- > "mechanism" by which the biological value of life is asserted and
--- > maintained. The manipulation of abstract symbols is the "mechanism"
--- > by which the intellectual value of truth is asserted and maintained.
---
--- I have some objections to the DNA-language comparison
--- because this makes language equal to to intellect. DNA is not the
--- inorganic pattern that became biology's building block, this was
--- the element carbon (DNA already is life) In that sense language
--- is social through and through even if being the said building block
--- of intellect.
Paul: Well, I don't think that language is equated to the manipulation of
abstract symbols.
I like the description of the levels Pirsig gives in the letter about the
intellectual level i.e. all biological patterns are also inorganic but not
all inorganic patterns are also biological etc. In this way, all
intellectual patterns are also social but not all social patterns are also
intellectual. I take this to mean that all things from a higher level can,
in principle, be described in terms of a lower level. But this does not
mean that that which is described by the higher levels is reduced to being
*nothing more than* that which is described by the lower levels. This
reductionism is, of course, one of the great errors of SOM.
So I don't think it is useful to just say that "language is social through
and through" because although all abstract symbols may be described in terms
of the social patterns of language, not all social patterns of language can
be described as the manipulation of *abstract* symbols. Some language has
an intellectual component, "where abstract thought...is of primary
importance." Hence, the qualified definition of the intellectual level,
from Pirsig's letter to me, is - "the skilled manipulation of abstract
symbols that have no corresponding particular experience." This, I find, is
a neat continuation of the line you often quote from ZMM:
"...as a result of the growing impartiality of the Greeks to the world
around them, there was an increasing power of abstraction...This
consciousness, which had never existed anywhere before in the world, spelled
a whole new level of transcendence for the Greek civilization."
This "increasing power of abstraction," I would argue, can be seen as an
increasing use of abstract vocabulary to cope with their environment. If
you read e.g. Homer, it is just description after description of particular
event after particular event; there is no abstract generalisation
whatsoever. To my knowledge, this abstract generalisation is first found,
in western writing, in the likes of Thales. The meanings of the words
Thales used are for sure dependent, as with all words, on the social
patterns of a language-speaking community, but the intellectual component is
evident in the generalised abstractions and propositions which have no
corresponding particular experience or event. To state that "All is water"
is a generalised statement which has no social purpose and to be forced to
reduce such statements to the social level because they were written in
language would be, to me, a reductionist mistake.
--- This Oriental issue is too big for me to handle at this moment.
--- But as said: If the Greek experience was the intellectual level's
--- emergence (something Paul admits to) then there can't be a non-
--- S/O oriental intellect. Unless we are back at the thinking intellect.
Paul: I "admit to" the *western* intellectual level's emergence in Greece
but I agree with Pirsig when he says in his letter to me that "the Oriental
cultures developed an intellectual level independently of the Greeks during
the Upanishadic period of India at about 1000 to 600 B.C." I've recently
quoted some of the Upanishadic texts to contrast with those of the Greeks.
--- > Paul: But SOM or SOL is not the sole custodian of the value of truth,
--- > and "truth" and "objective truth" are not synonyms.
---
--- The pre-intellect era knew truthfulness, but hardly "truth", in the
--- objectivity over subjectivity sense. Maybe this is what Paul
--- means with saying that "truth" and truthfulness aren't synonyms.
Paul: No, I'm saying "truth" is used by philosophers who get along fine
without thinking of it as "objective" or representational.
Regards
Paul
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