From: Paul Turner (pauljturner@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Mon Jun 16 2003 - 12:36:22 BST
Hi all
Couldn't resist adding something to this debate.
> PIRSIG from chapter 30
> "Philosophers usually present their ideas as sprung
> from "nature" or
> sometimes from"God", but Phadreus thought neither of
> these was completely
> accurate.
Right, philosophical ideas don't spring directly and
exclusively from biological experience or Dynamic
Quality. It would be more accurate to say that they
are a result of experience involving Dynamic Quality
and accumulated static patterns (inorganic,
biological, social and intellectual).
The logical order of things which the
> philosophers study is
> derived from the "mythos".The mythos is the social
> culture and the rhetoric
> which the culture must invent before philosophy
> becomes possible.
Yes, culture is social patterns plus intellectual
patterns. The mythos is the collection of concepts,
thoughts and ideas which are built on a particular
society. What is of value to a particular society (the
customs they have, the relationships they have, the
rituals they have, the organisation of roles that have
developed, the selection of inorganic and biological
patterns they collect, the paintings, the totems, the
rhythms they pound, the gestures they make and
understand) are the historical precursors (and are
still ingredients) of thought and language.
The mythos emerges from social patterns of value as an
intellectual pattern of value. The symbols of
experience are obviously derived from, amongst other
things, the social patterns of value in which the
people who are inventing the mythos live.
The mythos emphasises aspects valued by social
patterns - notice this, ignore that - with language,
we can speculate it began with one or two 'words'.
(I recall reading about the primitive word 'mana'
which we translate as 'awaken' or 'spirit' and is used
by primitive tribespeople for almost anything they
wish to single out for attention, in other words, to
single out what has value.)
Language is learned and maintained socially, but it is
an intellectual pattern of value, it involves mind.
Rhetoric is spoken using a language derived from
social patterns of value, the words of the language
stand for experience which is important, has high or
low Quality, to the society. This includes the
biological patterns evaluated by society as high or
low Quality.
PIRSIG: Within this evolutionary relationship it is
possible to see that intellect has functions that
predate science and philosophy. The intellect's
evolutionary purpose has never been to discover an
ultimate meaning of the universe. That is a relatively
recent fad. Its historical purpose has been to help a
society find food, detect danger, and defeat enemies.
It can do this well or poorly, depending on the
concepts it invents for the purpose." Lila Ch 24
Philosophy is a relatively recent fad of the
intellect. Say about 3000 years old?
Most of
> this religious talk is nonsense, of course, but
> nonsense or not, it is the
> PARENT of our modern scientific talk. This "mythos
> over logos" thesis agreed
> with the MOQ's assertion that intellectual static
> patterns of quality are
> built up out of social static quality. Digging back
> into ancient Greek
> history, to the time when this mythos-to logos
> transition was taking
> place...."
Yes, intellectual patterns are built up out of social
static quality. Different societies (social) have
different ideas and constructions of reality
(intellectual), together we may call them cultures and
each culture has a mythos.
DQ-SQ intuitions may transform the mythos, such a
transformation seems to have occurred in ancient Greek
history. Perhaps we can say that it was the ancient
Greeks that witnessed the dawning of speculative
thought, Dynamic Quality working on the intellect?
> 'For purposes of MOQ precision, let's say that the
> intellectual level is the same as mind. It is the
> collection and manipulation of symbols, created in
> the
> brain, that stand for patterns of experience.'
PIRSIG in a letter to Ant McWatt Jan 2nd 1998:
"To prevent confusion, the MOQ treats 'mind' as the
exact equivalent of 'static intellectual patterns' and
avoids use of the term when possible."
It would seem the MOQ has failed, confusion has not
been prevented. And if one can write myths without a
mind, then I'm seriously confused.
Trying to pin down the exact moment when the
intellectual level distinguished itself from the
social level is very interesting but I would say
ultimately futile in trying to understand the MOQ.
What does your experience tell you?
There are real societies today, there are real ideas
today, we can look at these things to work out what
patterns are in what level. If indeed that is what we
want to do.
If, as Pirsig suggests, you keep all thinking at the
4th level, I find the MOQ a clearer and more coherent
system of thought than if you divide philosophical,
non-philosophical, subject-object, mythological etc
thinking up into seperate evolutionary
levels....enormously more coherent, fabulously more
coherent :-)
The quality of any explanation is known best by the
harmony it produces. It will be sad if the MOQ
produces less harmony than other metaphysics.
cheers
Paul
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