From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Thu Nov 24 2005 - 10:54:56 GMT
Bo,
>> If intellectual level = rationality
>> and
>> If rationality > SOM
>> Then intellectual level > SOM
>
>> Which premise do you believe is false?
>
>The "rationality greater than SOM" naturally.
Paul: But recently you said that "IMO there was an Oriental
S/O-development, but it didn't evolve into a SOM thus delaying the next step
as it did in the West. The Eastern culture went on, but because of its
"weak" intellect their Buddhism/Taoism looks like some mystic religion to
us, while it really is an enlarged rationality."
So I ask you again, Can rationality be expanded or enlarged?
>A religious
>believer will claim that s-he is rational, which means that religions
>along with the myths of old are "intellectual patterns".
Paul: No it doesn't. What if I claim that I can fly by simply flapping my
arms? Does that make it so? They can claim all they want but I would argue
that they are rational only to the extent that their faith is based on the
application of systematic inference, preferably set out in a series of
related general propositions rather than in stories. Of course, this
intellectual level practice is called theology. With respect to myths, show
me one which fulfils this criteria and I'll grant you that some myths are
intellectual. I should tell you, however, that I've spent the last couple
of months reading a variety of ancient creation myths, Iliad, and some of
the Vedas and I cannot find anything approaching systematic logical
inference, just superlative-laden narratives reciting the social level
flexing of authority and will by posturing gods played out within the
scheming power struggles of heroes and villains.
>> As Pirsig suggests in ZMM, can rationality be expanded beyond
>> classical S/O rationality?
>
>The level system hadn't occurred in ZMM so "an expansion
>beyond classical S/O rationality" could hardly be anything else
>than a "better rationality ".
Paul: Where does this "better rationality" fit into the levels?
>But in LILA where the 4th. level bears
>every mark of being SOM
Paul: Begging the question.
, the very system that sees this level
>along with the rest is beyond them. The term "beyond" carries
>some beyond significance. No?
Paul: "The term beyond carries some beyond significance?" Not sure what
this is supposed to mean.
>Pirsig in ZMM:
>> "So I guess what I'm trying to say is that the solution to the problem
>> isn't that you abandon rationality but that you expand the nature of
>> rationality so that it's capable of coming up with a solution."
>
>"Not abandoning rationality" is the key.
Paul: Yes, i.e., it should be expanded rather than abandoned. Can it be
expanded, Bo? Or is this something else Pirsig says which you have to
reject?
Regards
Paul
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