Re: MD Intellectual level.

From: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com
Date: Thu Jun 26 2003 - 20:00:42 BST

  • Next message: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com: "Re: MD Intellectual level"

    Hi All
    please bear
    with me.

    sq: You have had your day Bo - years of days. Now give the DQ/SQ tension
    people a go. Make way for people who wish to explore Mr. Pirsig's ideas and not
    your own.
    You say 'we' have no conclusion to YOUR uncertainty regarding the intellect!
    You began the confusion and misunderstanding! The MoQ is just fine without
    your own peculiar view.
    It has taken a long time to begin to turn things around. I gather you do not
    like this?

    S/O is ill described as an intellect. It is a conceptualisation - a
    manipulation of symbols by the intellect. The intellect may be described as a tension
    between a repertoire of symbols and DQ. The relationship is everything.

    The MoQ suggests Intellect is a DQ/SQ tension between the total repertoire of
    static patterns and DQ. There is no 'bordering on' DQ because the intellect
    is in a relationship with DQ. That is our intuitive dynamic sense and the
    source of our aesthetic.

    To seriously suggest that intellect is merely the S/O divide is ludicrous.
    This apparent division is a method of conceptualising experience. For
    conceptualising to happen, there has to be intellectual manipulation - manipulation of a
    repertoire in a relationship with DQ.

    DQ is beyond conceptualisation, therefore mind, or symbolic manipulation, is
    a relationship between what the self thinks it is and something that cannot be
    defined - an otherness. The subject is never alone. Therefore, it is never a
    subject. Never.

    dmb:
    > Who thinks the following two Pirsigisms are contradictory? Who thinks only
    > one of them can be correct? Not me. I think that only a misunderstanding of

    > one or the other would lead a person to conclude that we are here faced
    with
    > a difficult choice. The trick is to take the LC clarifications as just
    that.
    > Pirsig is not saying anything different in LC and his comments are not
    > intended to undo any part of the MOQ as we find it in Lila. The best way to

    > discover the correct reading of any isolated quote is to put it within the
    > context of everything else he says about the topic and the MOQ in general.

    > > 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. 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. 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...."

    PIRSIG (from LILA'S CHILD):
    > > '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.'

    Skutvik:
    I still have problems with reconciling these two statements.

    sq: dmb says there isn't a difference: "Who thinks only one of them can be
    correct? Not me."
    The confusion is not that these statements are not saying the same thing. The
    confusion is your assertion that the S/O divide is intellect.

    Skutvik:
    In the above quote (and throughout the entire LILA book) Pirsig points out
    that intellect is out of social value, but the LC comment sounds uncannily
    like intellect is out of brain. What is not symbols if starting down that
    lane?
    Sense impressions in the brain are electric pulses which "symbolize" reality
    "out there" (patterns of inorganic experience) thus the biological level is
    symbols too.

    sq: You are ignoring the relationship intellectual patterns share with DQ and
    other patterns. No brain stands in isolation, and no isolated brain learns
    without experience. This language is informed by science - socially approved
    intellectual patterns of value.
    I do not see a problem with using scientific language, as long as the
    sensitive and intuitive individual keeps them, and MoQ terms separate.
    This is the source of your problem. You cannot keep the two concepts
    separate.

    squonk

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