From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Thu Mar 13 2003 - 22:27:08 GMT
Dear David B., Scott, Steve and Platt,
This is a reply to your e-mails of 1 & 2 March in this thread (4 by David, 3
by Platt, 1 by Scott & Steve after my 1 Mar 2003 23:24:34 +0100 e-mail
addressed to Steve).
David repeats in his e-mails that he does not define the intellectual level
by (or limit it to) 'thinking about thinking' (= philosophy according to the
Oxford Companion to Philosophy), but that '"thinking" is too broad to define
the intellectual level'. He reacts to Pirsig's statements in 'Lila's
Child', that the intellectual level can be equated with 'consciousness',
'mind' and 'thinking' with "that's fine but it needs to be further
clarified" and he refers to quotes from 'Lila' to explain the way he would
want to clarify these quotes from 'Lila's Child'.
Platt can (as always) be counted upon to clarify and support Pirsig's views.
Pirsig's intention obviously was to clarify what he wrote in 'Lila' with
what he wrote in 'Lila's Child' and not the other way round. Pirsig's quotes
from 'Lila's Child' at least strongly suggest that what he wrote in 'Lila'
must be (re-)interpreted as meaning that ALL consciousness, the WHOLE mind
and ALL thinking are included in the intellectual level.
Scott first distinguishes between 'thinking about thinking' and 'thinking
about (anything)'. Using Barfield as support, he equates the last with the
intellectual level AND with 'Subject-Object Thinking'. Before that, there
were 'ideas ... felt as coming from the gods, not [as] something internal',
i.e. (in my rewording:) 'thinking' was projected outside the subject.
Barfield dates this change around 500 BC.
Steve gives qualified support for my idea that the intellectual level
consists of 'motives for behavior' or 'thinking about behavior', while
stating that 'thinking' alone may be too broad a term to define the
intellectual level'.
I think that David's version of the MoQ, although valid as possible
interpretation of the MoQ presented by Pirsig in 'Lila' is not compatible
any more with Pirsig's ideas after his clarifications in 'Lila's Child'.
David doesn't have to agree with Pirsig of course, but it would clarify
things if he admitted his disagreements with Pirsig.
I agree that what David calls the social level involves thinking, that
believing myths implies thinking, and thus that 'thinking' is too broad to
define what he calls the intellectual level. I have argued repeatedly
however, that what David calls the social level should be included in the
intellectual level (because his distinction between 'social' and
'intellectual' -even though very important- isn't discrete enough to make it
a change of MoQ level). I offered an alternative definition of a social
level that is still between 'instinct' (biology) and 'thinking' (intellect)
and completely different from both: unthinking behavior that is not
genetically but socially determined. It is not true, that 'to construe all
thoughts as intellectual, you'd have to trash the structure of the MOQ', as
David wrote 2 Mar 2003 13:38:34 -0700. Not if you use my definitions.
Scott's vision contradicts Pirsig's clarification from 'Lila's Child'.
Countering Bodvar's identification of SOM and intellectual level, he wrote:
'I don't think the subject-object level is identical with intellect.
Intellect is simply thinking, and one can think without involving the
subject-object relationship. Computer language is not primarily structured
into subjects and objects. Algebra has no subjects and objects.'
I suggested in earlier postings, that early man (homo sapiens, between
50.000 - 100.000 years ago and around 500 BC) may have only thought in terms
of subject-subject relationships. Gods inspiring or even embodying ideas,
were other subjects to them. Everything they experienced was felt to be
animate, something to relate with from inside to inside, rather than to
perceive from the outside. They used symbols (e.g. paintings of the animals
they hunted or figurines of fertile women), probably in rituals which
conveyed meaning to them and not only latched 'human associations' (Platt's
catch phrase for the social level of 20 Feb 2003 10:07:15 -0500).
I suppose that Barfield (whom I didn't read myself) didn't write in the
context of the MoQ (and may even not know about it). So whatever he writes
can hardly be used as supporting an interpretation of what Pirsig wrote
about how to distinguish the social and the intellectual level. From what
Scott wrote about Barfield's ideas, I gather that Barfield's distinctions
between different types of thinking can best be aligned with Pirsig's ideas
by understanding them as (very interesting and important) subdivisions of
the intellectual level. (That's also how I tend to understand Wilber's
levels of consciousness, about which I have read much more.)
Steve asked:
'if I decide to sport a bare mid-riff in a conscious attempt to try to look
like Brittany Spears, have I copied a rationale?'
If you consciously do so in order to look like Britney Spears (that's the
name under which she is sold in the Netherlands), for instance when
preparing to act in a play-back show, you are motivating a planned action.
This way of motivating actions can be part of an intellectual pattern of
value of which you could be the originator (the first DQ action that breaks
an earlier social of intellectual pattern of value) OR a follower, copying
it from others.
Most people sporting bare mid-riffs probably aren't aware whom was the
originator of that pattern of behavior and aren't consciously planning to
achieve a goal in doing so. The pattern can be seen to be focused on
'status/celebrity' however, in that the originators of this type of behavior
tend to be well-known individuals with a lot of public exposure of whom
other behaviors are copied as well. (I don't know if Britney Spears was the
first. I guess she could have been.)
Steve also wrote:
'Wim's definition does not seem to include "thinking about thinking"'.
Copying motives for action is the patterns of 'symbols, created in the
brain, that stand for patterns of experience' are latched. Thinking (or
consciousness or mind or the intellectual level) is 'the collection and
manipulation of symbols, created in the brain, that stand for patterns of
experience'. 'Thinking about thinking' implies that the 'patterns of
experience' which these symbols stand for are themselves 'patterns of
symbols'.
These too are latched by people copying motives for action from each other.
If the 'thinking about thinking' wouldn't result in any action (even if only
effort to communicate with others), it would be experienced by very few
people (only the thinkers themselves) and would thus not be very relevant
(and empirically 'real'). If people wouldn't copy from each other the way in
which this 'thinking about thinking' results in action (its role in
motivating action), it wouldn't form a very long-lasting or widely spread
pattern of symbols. 'Thinking about thinking' that only exists in my private
brain can go on for as long as I live, if I keep repeating these thoughts
for myself, but it's empirical 'reality' is less than that of thoughts
shared by a more people and for more than one lifetime (because of copying).
Steve finally asked:
'But where did these rationales come from? (Also, Wim, in your definition
of the social level defined as "unconscious copying of behavior", where do
the originals of the copied behaviors come from?)'
The first time a motive is used, the birth of an intellectual pattern of
value, is DQ. It is an exception to an existing social or intellectual
pattern of value.
A first unthinking behavior, the birth of a social pattern of value, is DQ.
It is an exception to an existing biological or social pattern of value.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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