From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sat Jun 28 2003 - 02:53:54 BST
Squonk,
[Scott prev:]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.
[Squonk:] I feel far too much emphasis has been placed upon the so called S/O divide. Far too much. Way, way too much.
The fact is, people differentiated along these lines long before ancient Greece.
Well, no they didn't. At least that is the thesis of Owen Barfield's "Saving the Appearances", with which I agree. I can't give the full argument here, since that would amount to copying most of the book in. But the most obvious indication is that prior to the Greeks there was none of what we would call "thinking about things in general", mathematics, etc. The complete split between "me" and "not me" that makes this possible wasn't there (and actually wasn't completely there among most people until about 1500 AD, which is why SOM didn't appear until then.)
[Squonk:]Family homes, 6000 years old, discovered in far reaches of the UK display ornaments set upon tables, just like we do today. They were sophisticated, and lived in a manner we would find startlingly close to our own.
I have never denied that language, symbols, etc., didn't exist prior to 500 BC. The question is what kind of minds existed.
[Squonk:] The significance of Greece in ZAMM is the emergence of reason. That does not even require Subjects and Objects, as you point out with your example of mathematics. These relationships (3-4-5, etc.) were originally incorporated into religious practice, but later seen as immutable like the Gods.
On the contrary, to do mathematics requires a rational mind that says "here is this, here is that, what do they have in common?". One does not split the world into subjects and objects while doing mathematics, but one had to have done so to make the doing of mathematics possible in the first place. Mathematics is post-S/O thinking.
[Squonk:] Reason. That's what it's about - and that relies upon truth. The combination of reason and a concept of immutable substance crystallised intellectual patterns. That is what Bo incessantly goes on about - calling this 'the birth of the intellect.' It's nonsense. Absolute nonsense. Significant yes! But birth of the intellect? Not at all. Birth of reason - speculative thought yes! Birth of the intellect? No way man.
Then call the fourth level the rational level, or the speculative level, I don't care. It (the S/O divide) is the birth of the fourth level, which is what matters.
I will grant that Pirsig thought of the intellectual level as pre-dating the Greeks. However, he gives as his reason for writing Lila: "To explain why people differed about what has quality." (LC Note 83). Until the intellect took on S/O form, there was no conflict between the social and the intellectual, so pre-S/O intellect has no bearing on the MOQ.
- Scott
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