From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sun Jun 29 2003 - 21:12:06 BST
Platt, Sam,
(I've changed the thread name since this one seems more accurate.)
[Sam:] > So there was
> > never a significant period of time when there were only level 3 values?
>
[Platt:]> Right. The distinction is a matter of dominance. The social level
was
> dominated by mythical thinking (as it still is in parts of the world
> today.) The intellectual level is dominated by rational thinking which, in
> turn, is dominated by the S/O intellectual pattern which dismisses values
> as irrational.
The S/O pattern by itself does not dismiss value. SOM can allow value as
long as it doesn't deny the subject (i.e., "values are subjective" does not
have to imply that they are "just what you like" in some pejorative sense.
God can be thought of as instilling value into our minds, for example.) It
is only the materialist form of SOM that has to deny value.
On the main point, though, I don't see what you are getting at here. If the
intellectual level is dominated by rational thinking, then it seems to me
you are adding a fifth level. Also, I question that mythic thinking is
"thinking" -- at least not thinking by an individual in the sense of an
actual person thinking to him- or herself that there is a choice of myths
to think.
> If you agree that a human society requires a culture to exist, i.e., a
> common language and world outlook, then the following quote from Pirsig
> backs my view that society and intellect arose simultaneously.
>
> "For precision I think I would say that a culture contains social and
> intellectual values, but not biological or inorganic." Note 28, Lila's
> Child
>
> If you add the following and I think the evidence is clear:
>
> "The intellect's evolutionary purpose has never been to discover an
> ultimate meaning of the universe. That Is a relatively recent fad. Its
> historical purpose has been to help a society find food, detect danger,
> and defeat enemies." (24)
>
> All necessary for the social level to become viable.
I have to agree that Pirsig sees the intellectual level as starting with the
social. For that reason, I think I am leaning toward Sam's eudaimonic
position, and in general, that Pirsig's choice of name, the "intellectual
level" is a mistake, if it is deemed to mean "the mind" or the "manipulation
of symbols...". The reason being, as I said in my post to Squonk:
"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."
Myself, I would argue against Pirsig, and say that the word "intellect" is
better reserved for S/O thinking (with the idea that the S/O divide is the
essential first "cut" that makes further cutting possible). Pre-S/O mind
was, as DMB puts it, qualitatively different from S/O mind, and it is that
difference that turns it into a new level in MOQ terms -- a new set of
static patterns that can conflict with the lower level.
- Scott
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