From: Jonathan B. Marder (jonathan.marder@newmail.net)
Date: Thu Jul 10 2003 - 19:49:12 BST
Hi Bo, Platt, Sam and all
BO
> I HAVE done nothing BUT criticize this "thinking" intellect. ALL my
> activity has been about it because it undermine the MOQ as
> presented in LILA.
Bo, the reason we seem to be in agreement lately is that we both have a
problem with how Pirsig presents the Intellectual level in Lila. Let me try
and explain how I see the problem.
Pirsig's MoQ devides up reality into patterns at different levels.Atoms are
Inorganic patterns, lifeforms are Biological patterns, etc. That is all very
well, but as soon as we start STUDYING those patterns, we are engaged in an
inttelectual activity.
Quantum THEORY, bioLOGY, socioLOGY are all intellectual patterns. I think
that Magnus expressed this problem way back, claiming that the patterns all
have their intellectual counterpart. IMO, this is the Platonic worldview,
with empirically detected patterns (appearances) as reflections of idealized
forms. The pragmatic twist on this is to see the Patonic "forms" as
"intellectualizations" of what the senses detect. In either case, the
dichotomy is in essence the Cartesian division between Mind and Matter. As
soon as Pirsig put an Intellectual level in his MoQ, he put himself firmly
into the Cartesian camp. IMO, this is the bone of the problem. Bo's SOLAQI
idea is an expression of the problem, not a solution to it. Pirsig's feeble
attempt to use the Social level as a buffer between the Intellectual world
and the material world (see Lila and Pirsig's essays) does more damage than
good, undermining the idean of social patterns as REAL VERIFIABLE patterns.
I thus keep asking myself, what is an intellectual pattern?
BO states:
> A thinking intellect can't result in the intellectual values Pirsig
> mentions in LILA. My best example is an independent juridical
> system, but also democracy is a strange offshoot of "manipulations of
> symbols".
The point is, IMO both the judicial system and democracy are social
patterns. An obvious example would be a group of young children taking a
vote to decide on what game to play, not because of some theoretical
democratic understanding, because it is a social pattern that they have
copied and perhaps found to work. Of course, the theorizing about democracy
remains intellectual.
My own preferred solution to this problem is to put intellect back where it
belongs, i.e. AT EVERY LEVEL. Without Intellect, there are no levels. The
inorgnic level includes both "physical matter" and what we think and feel
about it, and the same goes for the biological levels. Surely, that is the
heart of the quality idea as expounded in ZAMM. That very beuatiful idea was
destroyed when Pirsig gave intellect its own level.
Jonathan
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Jul 10 2003 - 20:04:05 BST