From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Thu Sep 29 2005 - 08:19:58 BST
Anthony and Company
On 26 Sep. you wrote:
> Anyway, keeping in mind what Owen Barfield puts forward in “Saving the
> Appearances”, it seems that primitive human cultures were using logic
> and the manipulation of symbols before the seeds of SOM arose with the
> Greeks.
Intelligence again. Of course people of old did all these things,
why keep reminding me? Have you forgotten that Pirsig has
rejected the "thinking" intellect?
This would point to SOM and MOQ intellect being different
> things.
As said a couple of times, if one accepts the story told in ZMM
and then compares it with Pirsig statements that the Greeks
developed intellect - in addition to what is written all over LILA -
it is embarrassingly plain that the SOL interpretation is correct.
> I think this is one of the difficulties with this issue. You see I
> think the complete reverse. It is as clear as day to me that the MOQ
> is an intellectual pattern and not “out” or “beyond” it.
A central tenet of the MOQ is that the higher level began as a
pattern of the former, one that eventually "took off on a purpose
of its own". And intellect isn't immune against this kind of
"subversion".
But please note that I have dropped the 5th level. The MOQ is
simply is the system of which intellect is a subset. Yet, its
relationship with intellect bears many likenesses to the level
conflict.
> As my PhD supervisor reminded me on more than one occasion, philosophy
> that relies on standard dictionary definitions is usually bad
> philosophy. For instance, regarding this issue, we are discussing
> what Pirsig defines as “intellect” not what some writer of the Oxford
> Dictionary might think it is.
It was Pirsig who left intellect to common sense. I just show that
dictionaries - which is supposed to be common sense - do in fact
define it in a S/O-like way.
The "manipulation of symbols" definition was clearly some patch-
up as the first mind-definition started to unravel. Paul defend it
for a long time, but ended up with a new one (the "propositions"
one) which is close to the SOL. So is Sam's Eudaimonic, but
going all the way ... never!
> The MOQ doesn’t reject SOM wholesale but includes it completely in a
> broader metaphysical map.
No disagreement. What a relief ;-)
> This is what SOM philosophers in the
> academic world often fail to get. It is this broader metaphysical
> “value” map that allows Pirsig to dissolve SOM’s metaphysical problems
> (such as the mind-matter problem) wholesale. (For instance, see
> Chapter 3 of my PhD to see an MOQ solution to various SOM problems).
I guess yours is identical to LILA's regarding the mind/matter
platypus; that the biological and social levels bridges the gap
between matter and mind, but this presupposes that
intellect=mind and this has already been abolished. And it sounds
to me that he spends a long time disproving that the inorganic
level has anything to do with matter.
That the MOQ makes away with SOM, and thereby its platypi, is
true, but the orthodox method of "encasing" the SOM
(inorganic+organic =object(ive//social+intellect= subject(ive) is
not the way to do it.
> I think to clarify this issue it has to be remembered that the MOQ is
> a metaphysical map that refers to reality as a whole. A part of
> reality consists of maps. As such, a map of all of reality (such as
> the MOQ) must also have a reference to itself or else it isn’t a map
> of ALL of reality.
I have difficulties with deciphering this. The MOQ is a
metaphysical map that refers to reality as a whole. Agree. But
then: "A part of reality consists of maps". To me it looks
contradictory.
> If you remember that the MOQ includes reference to Dynamic Quality
> (and realise, for instance, that an individual copy of LILA doesn’t
> literally contain Dynamic Quality as a whole) you can see that the
> MOQ's intellectual level must include a reference to the MOQ (as a
> metaphysical map of everything).
If you mean that the "book" LILA (paper and ink) isn't DQ you are
right but it isn't the MOQ either. If you mean that DQ isn't part of
the MOQ I disagree, in ZMM Pirsig correctly asked: Where was
Gravity before Newton? So I might ask "Where was Quality
before Pirsig" Hanging around for him to discover?
In ZMM he also showed that SOM came to be with the Greeks
(intellect from a society sophisticated enough to support it)
"What's essential to understand at this point is that until now
there was no such things as mind and matter, subjects and
objects ..." (ZMM 367) The conclusion is that Quality (as reality's
ground) came to be with Pirsig.
But this is no blow to the MOQ - far from that - a great new theory
crystallizes everything - the past and the future - into its pattern.
After Newton the physical world came to be governed by gravity -
even its birth billions of years ago. After Pirsig the metaphysical
world came to be governed by Quality, thus the inorganic level
was the first fall-out and intellect the last, while the MOQ is
everywhere which means nowhere.
Finally to your assertion that MOQ's intellect must include a
reference to the MOQ. Again to Newton. His physics was out of
the old physics, it was in fact his physics that reconstructed it as
"old". This old physics don't not have references to Newtonian
physics. Likewise, MOQ is out of SOM and re-constructs it as its
own static intellectual level .... this level can't "include the MOQ".
Bo
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