From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Wed Jun 18 2003 - 15:47:41 BST
Squonk,
[Scott prev:]So, whether or not Pirsig has said as much, I think it is legitimate to say
that the intellectual level *in humans* is less than 3000 years old. On the
other hand, I would regard intellect (though perhaps needing a more
grandiose term, like Logos) to have been "in existence" from the beginning,
that all static patterns are in some sense "intellectual". If one doesn't
want to go that far (it is kind of esoteric, to be sure), then one can say
that it has been "around" all through the social level, but doesn't emerge
as its own level until the Greeks.
[Scott prev continued:] The implication of this is that it is only with its emergence in humans that
we can see DQ operating in it, that is, to purposefully work and be creative
on that level.
[Squonk:] I have no idea where this confusion came from, but it appears to be deeply ingrained and has permeated the forum for quite some time. However, it must be put to rest, because it is quite simply incorrect.
Simple it is not. None of us were there 2500 years ago, so we must make our best guess from the data available.
[Squonk:] There is no contradiction in the quotes Paul has cited. The confusion is centred upon what happened when Intellectual values were changed in the Dynamic social institutions of ancient Greece.
Intellectual patterns were exceptionally rich and varied well before ancient Greece, in Asia, China, India, and had been for so long that we have little idea how long. This must be understood.
But they did not come in the subject/object form that they do today. The intellect appeared to come from outside, now it appears to come from inside.
[Squonk:] Ancient Greece tried to encapsulate social quality with intellectual patterns. That was the big move. Indian culture lives in harmony with its intellectual and social patterns. That is better i feel. It is the relationship between Social and Intellectual patterns that ancient Greece changed - no level sprang into existence or emerged suddenly like a howling wind in the night of thought.
For the evidence that it did spring into existence (not suddenly, but gradually), see
Julain Jaynes, The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances
Bruno Snell, The Discovery of the Mind (I haven't read much of this, but I think it is relevant)
Notice also the difference between the Upanishads and the pre-Upanishadic Vedas. (And notice also that Vedantic philosophy includes the concept of Maya, so all was not smooth sailing. Indian philosophy included all types, materialists and idealists, so I wouldn't call it harmonious.)
Notice that Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics amount to a set of heuristics, while Greek mathematics is a system of proofs.
Notice the timing, the contemporaneity at c. 500 BC of the Upanishads, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, the pre-Socratic philosophers, and the final redaction of the Old Testament.
The "confusion" that you refer to you arises, in my opinion, in the fact that it is practically impossible for us to imagine being a person without this subject/object division we all now have. Yet the evidence shows that it is a recent development. Without that division, there is no manipulating of symbols to *stand for* existing static patterns, that is, there is no "thinking about".
In the end, my point is that if we don't acknowledge this c. 500 BC difference (whatever we want to call it), then our metaphysics is radically incomplete.
- Scott
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