From: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com
Date: Mon Jun 16 2003 - 15:30:27 BST
All MOQers:
Squank said:
However, you are wrong to suggest the intellect has been developing for
3,000 years and not before that cut off point:
Pirsig said:
"Digging back into ancient Greek history, to THE TIME WHEN THIS
MYTHOS-TO-LOGOS TRANSITION WAS TAKING PLACE..."
dmb says;
I ready posted this quote several times. How could you possible miss it.
Pirsig explicitly puts the birth of the intellect back with the ancient
Greeks, the height of which was about 450 BC. I was generous and pushed
it back to include the pre-Socratics and make the ration easy to see.
(30:160) To push it back any further just flatly contradicts Pirsig (and
Barfielf and Wilber) on this point.
sq: There is nothing in the quote that states this is when Pirsig feels the
intellect is born.
The mythos and logos in the quote both require symbols manipulated by the
brain. It is what the symbols mean and the way they are manipulated that changes,
not that there are symbols being manipulated.
If you suggest this change in meaning is reason or rationality emerging i
could understand why you have made the mistake you have. You are confusing
intellect, reason, philosophy, religion and myth. All these activities require the
manipulation of symbols in the brain - they are all intellectual.
Your confusion, i would venture to suggest, may be due to the views of other
people other than Mr. Pirsig. It may not be your fault. But please recognise
where you have been mislead?
Squank said:
The intellect has been evolving since symbols have been manipulated by the
mind, which includes culture, rhetoric and thinking about myth before
philosophy. That is more than 3,000.
squonk
dmb says:
Later in the same chapter (30) Pirsig discusses the distinction between
mythos and logos, which is allot like the distinction between mythical
thinking and logical thinking. I think it clearly shows that you are quite
mistaken to equate the two.
PIRSIG:
"These rituals may be the connecting link between social and intellectual
levels of evolution. One can imagine primitive song-rituals and
dance-rituals associated with certain cosmology stories, myths,
which generated the first primitive religions. From these the FIRST
INTELLECTUAL TRUTHS could have been DERIVED."
sq: The events in this quote happened tens of thousands of years ago. Thus,
Pirsig is saying that intellect began to emerged from social evolution tens of
thousands of years ago - the primitive song-rituals and dance-rituals of tens
of thousands of years in prehistory.
After a long grounding, the intellect began to accelerate its split away from
the social level in the period discussed in your chosen quotes.
Note: The split could not have happened had not the intellect (the
manipulation of symbols in the brain - language, art, myth, story) been evolving for a
considerable time.
dmb says:
Clearly the people telling each other these myths and cosmology stories
were able to talk and think and hold beliefs about the world, but its a huge
mistake to confuse this with intellect. You've confused the symbolic logic
of intellect with the metaphorical nature of myth and ritual.
sq: I feel you have confused 'symbol' with 'logic.' Prehistoric language
manipulates symbols in the brain. Logic manipulates symbols in the brain in a
particular variety of ways.
Logic is a method for manipulating symbols.
Symbols are that which are manipulated either logically or otherwise, as in
story telling involving language and myth.
I wish to sincerely apologise for my insulting behaviour of late. Sorry Dave.
All the best,
squonk
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