From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Fri Jun 27 2003 - 04:22:04 BST
Bo,
> Heeding DMB's wise words I still have problems with reconciling these two
> statements. Symbols and manipulation thereof soon assumes the same role
> as mind of SOM .... which was what launched Phaedrus on the Quality
> quest in the first place to rid the world of its impossibilities.
>
> 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.
>
> ------If not the "manipulation" term is the key? It indicates a subject
having
> an objective view of things - able to shuffle around with the symbols; to
think
> abstractly.. I'll try to develop this in my next instalment.
Well, my thought on reconciling them was in paying attention to the clause
"that stand for static patterns", the point being that one needs the S/O
divide to have symbolic manipulation on one hand and something the
manipulation is about on the other. Unfortunately, I don't assume that that
is necessarily what Pirsig had in mind when he wrote that sentence. I
suspect that he would not care to say absolutely that the intellectual level
started with the Greeks, as there is that other bit about the intellectual
level having originated for purposes of survival, etc., not for making
theories of reality. (For the record, I consider the phrase "in the brain"
to be unfortunate, but that's due to my own bias against the mind/brain
identity hypothesis, and not really relevant to this topic.)
There is also this quote, number 95 in LC, in response to your statement:
"...it had puzzled me greatly that Subject/Object metaphysics *may* be
viewed as the intellectual level of the MOQ." Pirsig said:
"I don't think the subject-object level is identical with intellect. Intelle
ct 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."
But this also does not resolve anything. First, a minor point: the bit on
computer language is irrelevant. Computer language is not human language. It
is just a way to encode instructions for computers, and has nothing to do
with thinking. But the algebra bit is. Mathematics is thinking which is not
thinking about something else.
However, there was no mathematics in this sense until the Greeks, and the
S/O divide. Earlier mathematics, like that of the Egyptians, amounted to
rules of thumb for doing other things. There was no "thinking about" right
angles in themselves, just using the 3-4-5 rule to mark a right angle.
So, yes, the intellectual level is more than the S/O divide, but also yes,
it depended on the S/O divide to exist as a new level. Now you mentioned
that I didn't press this enough with Squonk, but as I said to him, I'm not
all that concerned with preserving the word "intellectual" in naming this
level. Whatever the name, I would say the fourth level begins with the human
mind learning to separate reality into subjects and objects. Until then, all
thinking, all symbol manipulation, was determined by social and biological
concerns, and was not seen as an independent activity of the individual.
- Scott
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