From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Tue Oct 25 2005 - 06:15:19 BST
DMB,
dmb replies:
Dynamic intellect? See, you've had to invent a new category, one that is
apparently self contradictory, in order to make a contradictory assertion.
The "confusion" you refer to is not a failure to distinquish between static
and dynamic intellect, the confusion comes from trying to assert that
"whatever one can say about DQ can be said about intellect". That's what
makes no sense. This might be a bit humorous, but the point is to reveal the
lack of logic in your assertions.
Scott:
I am saying that all along I should have been saying "dynamic intellect is
DQ" (rather than "intellect is DQ"), to conform with what I have said many
times, that Quality and Intellect are two names for the same (non-)thing.
The initial cut into dynamic and static can be made on both. This is, of
course a different usage of the word 'intellect' from the MOQ, and so I have
given arguments (in other posts) for why it is a good idea to adopt this
different usage (and to support the Quality = Intellect claim). When you
accuse me of illogicality, what you are doing is treating what I say as if
this intention of mine were irrelevant, and that 'intellect' must mean what
the MOQ says it means. Try to see it like this: Pirsig has changed the usage
of 'value' from that of seeing it as subjective, to seeing it as being prior
to the subject/object divide. How would you respond to someone who said
"Pirsig is illogical because he says that value is not subjective, since we
all know that value is subjective"? I am saying that it is useful to treat
intellect the same way as Pirsig treats quality. You call me illogical for
saying that intellect is dynamic as well as static, I guess because "we all
know" that intellect is just static (I see no other reason for calling
dynamic intellect "self-contradictory"). I am arguing against the view that
intellect belongs solely on the static side of the dynamic/static cut, so to
call me illogical for referring to "dynamic intellect" is, well, illogical.
Scott continued:
DQ is undivided. How can one say that dynamic intellect is divided if it can
transcend any division and create new divisions? DQ leaves new SQ in its
wake. Dynamic intellect leaves new concepts (symbolic SQ, aka static
intellect) in its wake. DQ is pre-intellectual. Well, I called this
nonsensical. How does it make sense that whatever Einstein employed (or, if
you like, employed Einstein) in coming up the the theories of relativity
should be called "pre-intellectual"?
dmb replies:
Pirsig explains exactly this sort of intellectual creativity. The SOVD paper
and the Poincare example springs to mind. As I understand it, the thinker
manipulates the symbols around the problem looking for an explanation or a
solution of some kind and of the virtually infinite possible answers, one
will be selected dynamically, on the basis of that pre-intellectual Quality.
Later that selected answer will be symbollicaly manipulated until it can be
shown to work in static terms, until it is latched. And this kind of
creativity is only consistent with the overall evolutionary scheme of the
MOQ. Alll levels of static quality evolve dynamically. All new patterns are
selected dynamically. Yep, even at the intellectual level.
Scott:
I understand this and think it makes perfect sense, except for one thing..
Why not call that which selects from those "virtually infinite possible
answers dynamically" dynamic intellect? An "Aha!" moment is intellectual and
it is dynamic. So call it dynamic intellect rather than "pre-intellectual
Quality".
dmb replies:
You've invented this new category "dynamic intellect" in order to get at a
perfectly legitmate question about intellectual creativity, but you do so as
if Pirsig never addressed the issue or indeed, demonstrated in his own
personal efforts in the writing of the book we are here to discuss. That
just kills me.
Scott:
I understand that Pirsig addressed the issue. I am saying that the phrase
"dynamic intellect" addresses the issue more simply than, say, "responding
to DQ" or "pre-intellectual Quality".
DMB said:
You keep pretending to be a MOQ detractor, but I think you're
only objecting to your own questions, which stem from your own
misconceptions. And then you come of with stuff like "dynamic intellect" and
offer it as an improvement? I think it not only fails to improve anything, I
don't even think it makes sense, about as much sense as the confusing and
contradictory concept of "wet dryness".
Scott:
If quality can be dynamic or static, why not intellect? What is
contradictory about calling "the Dynamic Edge of ongoing thought" dynamic
intellect?
DMB had said:
Also, you say intellect manipulates, creates, and sheds concepts, but its
not bound by concepts and is concept-free?
Scott replied:
Yes. Not bound means free, doesn't it? Intellect is concept-free in the same
sense that we say that DQ is SQ-free. Of course there is no intellect
without some concepts, but then there is no DQ without some SQ.
dmb now says:
Right. And sugar-free gum is not bound by sugar and Caffine-free soda is
unrestricted by stimulants.
You have GOT to be kidding me.
Its pretty clear that you get my point. I was objecting to the assertion
that intellect could be concept-free in the normal sense, that it was
without concepts the way fat-free ice cream has no fat. That's why, after
pretending concept-free means "not bound by", you admit that "there is no
intellect with some concepts". But c'mon, Scott. What the hell is a
concept-free intellect? Do I really have to explain why that makes no sense?
Scott:
I got your point. You seem to be ignoring mine. Would you not say that DQ is
SQ-free, even though there is no DQ without SQ? DQ is SQ-free in the sense
that it is not bound by any particular SQ. Similarly, dynamic intellect is
concept-free in the sense that it is not bound by any particular concept.
Remember that this started with your saying that DQ is concept-free. I
assumed this to mean that no concept can capture DQ. And so I pointed out
that likewise, no concept can capture dynamic intellect, and so in the same
sense in which you said that DQ is concept-free, so is dynamic intellect.
(Though I now have to correct what I said by inserting the "dynamic".)
DMB continued:
Isn't it more correct to say that intellect is absolutely stuffed to the
gills with concepts. Its moves like this that make me ask if English is your
second language or if you were raised in the wild by a tribe of dyslexic
chimps. And besides all that, it seems to me that intellect is basically
bound by concepts since intellectual static patterns and their manipulation
pretty much defines its domain.
Scott:
The point to make is that intellect is not just concepts. Concepts are the
static side of intellect. Creation of new concepts is the dynamic side,
which goes beyond the domain you see intellect as restricted to.
DMB said:
But getting back to the larger issue, its not difficult to see that static
and dynamic, as Pirsig uses them, are approximately opposite. They define
each other by being what the other is not. They are the two main categories,
the first distinction which all others follow. I'm not saying this is sacred
ground, just that these are very basic and very central ideas in the MOQ.
And it just seems to me that this distinction shouldn't be erased or undone
for any trival reason. And so far from you, sir, I see no reason at all. At
least not any that make sense. AS DM said, "I think you are wrong and that
you disagree with a Pirsig of your own making." For example...
Scott:
I don't want to erase them, and am puzzled by why you would think I would. I
want to apply them to intellect as well as quality.
Scott said:
I am not saying that all that Pirsig talks about is the superiority of DQ
over intellect. I am saying that he frequently talks of intellect as
covering up, or taking one away from DQ, as in the hot stove example. The
painful sensation is seen as "pure", while the thinking about it seen as, I
guess, impure, derivative, and so on -- in a word, seen as inferior. Why
isn't it also seen as "pure"?
dmb replies:
Here you have used your own characterizations to describe the distinction
between the pre-intellectual experience and the manipulation of abstract
symbols, between DQ and sq. But your characterization defies what Pirsig
says about the need to balance the two, about correcting Phaedrus' mistake
on that very point; putting DQ above sq. He does not frequently talk about
intellect "covering up, or taking one away from DQ". He merely makes the
distinction between the two kinds of experience. He does not frequently talk
about intellect as "impure, derivative" or "inferior" either. I sincerely
wonder if he EVER characterized intellect that way. He hammers on our
cultural blindspot against DQ and points out that spiritual enlightenment is
distinctly different from intellectual understanding, but I think its rather
disengenuous to suggest Pirsig makes intellect out to be anything less than
the most evolved and open ended level, the most dynamic static patterns.,
:-)
Scott:
I am not suggesting that "Pirsig makes intellect out to be anything less
than the most evolved and open ended level, the most dynamic static
patterns." I am suggesting that it is silly to call the "Dynamic edge of
ongoing thought" pre-intellectual, and that it is a mistake to see intellect
as just static patterns, no matter that they are the highest level thereof.
Intellect is also the means for breaking existing patterns and creating new
ones. Isn't that what DQ is said to do? So why make it complicated by
differentiating DQ from dynamic intellect, by saying that there is some
other force or whatever in addition to intellect that produces new
intellectual patterns?
DMB said:
I hear writers talk about this sort of thing all the time. They talk about
how it is the ego-mind or monkey-mind that has to do all the research,
editing and re-writing. But when the research has been done and the
creativity begins, they stop talking about it in terms of writing and start
talking about it in terms of listening to the characters they've created.
The people in the play tell the writer what they are going to say and do
within the story. And I think its pretty clear that this just one example of
how people hang on to the cutting edge of experience, even the ongoing
experience of thought itself. The creative scientists are not so different.
Einstein and Poincare had to go to school and do their work, they had to use
their ego monkey minds to get to the point where creativity could then be
used. In both cases the choices are infinite, but somehow, not through a
process of elimination or any other logical selection process, BAM, one just
seems right. Pirisg's distinction is not invented out of thin air. It refers
to actual experience that people have all the time.
Scott:
I agree with all this. I just see no reason not to call the BAM moment
dynamic intellect *as well as* dynamic quality.
- Scott
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