From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Sat Oct 01 2005 - 07:18:55 BST
Hi Mike
29 Sep. you wrote:
> I just want to home in on one particular thing you said in reply to
> Rebecca, because I think you're contradicting yourself.
> Rebecca wrote:
> > > The concept of 'Nothingness' is an intellectual
> > > static pattern. You have to get to it by a bit of a symbolically
> > > circular argument though. Nothing doesn't actually exsit.
> Bo replied:
> > ...which may be interesting enough. I will just say: What is not
> > "intellectual" if things expressed by language are intellectual?
> I'm totally in agreement with your reasoning so far... (Just as an
> aside, I suspect that this wider definition of intellect that you are
> objecting to, i.e. the use and manipulation of language, is roughly
> Barfield's usage of the term "intellect", and a possible cause of
> Scott's objections to how "intellect" is used in the MOQ.
Hmm. In that case Scott ought to be happy because the
"manipulation of symbols" (which is language IMO) is now the
current definition (after Pirsig abandoned "thinking" or "mind").
> I'm hoping
> that simply referring to the MOQ's fourth level as just "the fourth
> level", might help a little.)
Well, it helps, but .... what's your opinion about my final SOL-
ution?
> > In
> > that case everything is [intellectual], and is why I so vehemently
> > resist that the intellectual level of the MOQ has anything to do
> > with thinking or language or mental activity.
> But don't you see that if _everything_ is expressed in language (as
> you implied in the first part of your argument), intellect must be a
> part of that everything?
Language as anything more than an advanced social
(communication) pattern is better shied. It's a black hole that
nothing escapes from. Everything is expressed by language so
not only is intellect part of this linguistic everything - all levels
are. There are those that believe that "mysticism" escapes
language, but that's nonsense.
> Therefore, intellect must have _something_ to
> do with language, thinking, and mental activity. The subject/object
> divide is the normal mode of experience in the West precisely because
> it is embedded in the language people use and in the way people think.
Yes, definitely. Because intellect builds on society it employs
language for it's own purpose. In my opinion language is the
ambiguous pattern that DQ employed for its escape from the
social level.
"Thinking or mental activity" however. You have noticed my
"intelligence fallacy" sentence? I see this as a biological (neural)
complexity that made the big-brained early human species able
to escape from the biological to the social level, and that this
intelligence naturally has followed the Q-evolution ever since ....
and regrettably been identified with the intellectual LEVEL.
> What I _hope_ you are resisting is the idea that _everything_ to do
> with language, thinking and mental activity should be part of the
> MOQ's fourth level. I'm pretty sure that's what you actually mean, as
> you've said many times that language is the fourth level's "carbon" (I
> seem to remember Matt calling language the "currency" of the fourth
> level, by which I suppose he meant the same thing). So I can't believe
> that you really think language has nothing to do with the fourth
> level, but that's certainly the impression I get from the bit quoted
> above.
Wow! Here you express it beautifully. I should possibly have read
all of your message before starting to write!
> I'm just saying this in the hope of avoiding confusion, and to make
> sure that you're arguing what I think you're arguing.
Right! Thanks Mike.
Bo
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