From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Wed Jul 02 2003 - 08:11:43 BST
Hi Jonathan.
Good to see you.You said:
> As another veteran reading from the shadows, let me throw in my 2
> cents worth:
> The definition of the intellectual level has been the sticking point
> since this group started.
How true!
> The main problem is confusion with the
> social level, a confusion that RMP fuelled in Lila by saying that the
> social and intellectual levels are equivalent to the "mind" of SOM.
Or "..the subjective part of SOM", but that is the same thing.
> This in turn led to people talking in this forum about "social level"
> thinking.
Am I one of those?. I would have liked to qualify, but ..KISS.
> The recent posts convince me more than ever that "social level
> thinking" is an oxymoron. To be governed by the social level is to do
> things "unthinkingly" based on what society expects.
First "oxymoron". My dictionary don't contain that? Hmm. "Unthinkingly"?
But OK there is something interesting to come.
> Thinking is what DEFINES the intellectual level.
> Pirsig did his best
> work at outlining the intellectual level in ZAMM, where he describes
> its institutionalized form - THE CHURCH OF REASON.
Agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
> I would assume that
> the earliest hominids had considerable powers of thought, but only in
> the last few thousand years that thought was honed into the powerful
> intellectual tools we know today, such as dialectical argument and
> logic.
Doesn't this contradict your "unthinking" statement. The earliest hominids
were definitely from before the intellectual level. But I agree 100%
> These tools now govern our lives - something we call the "AGE
> OF REASON". For this, we owe a lot to the Greek philosophers, who
> forged a particular type of thinking (SOM). Pirsig's frustration with
> the Church of Reason was that it has restricted thinking so much that
> perfectly "reasonable" thoughts are outside its realm. Thus, the
> SOM-thinking churchgoers follow their exclusively SOM thoughts to the
> point of absurdity. There's nothing reasonable about that!
I agree with everything you say, but what was "thinking" before the Greek
philosophers? I still have this hunch that what so many understand by
"thinking" or "mind" (and why they get so upset by the S/O-intellect
interpretation) is the dynamic aspect of existence.
> To summarize, please can we follow the KISS maxim (keep it simple,
> stupid!):
> Intellect is thinking!!
> The aim of the MoQ is to expand the use and flexibility of thought.
OK, everything you have said supports the view that the intellectual LEVEL
emerged with the Greeks and is the S/O divide or reason, yet - after having
said that the early hominids (of the social era) had "considerable powers of
thought" - insist on the thinking definition of intellect. Please explain. Don't
be afraid of you know who.:-)
Sincerely.
Bo
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