From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Jul 11 2003 - 16:43:49 BST
Hi Jonathan, Bo, Sam, All
JONATHAN
> 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.
Intellectual activity begins with creation of the patterns themselves, not
just when they are studied. Pirsig's dividing up reality into patterns of
value was an intellectual activity.
> 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".
I can't find anyplace where Pirsig said that a judicial system and democracy
were intellectual patterns. He did say certain rights were intellectual vs.
society issues because they freed intellect from social control (freedom of
speech, of travel, trial by jury, etc.) Society is always trying to dictate what
symbols are appropriate for manipulation, what you can think and what you
can't. You're probably familiar with political correctness whereby, as one
example, blacks in the U.S. must be referred to as African-Americans even
though not a single one was born in Africa. Intellect rebels against P.C.
and other forms of social thought control. That's why the right to free
speech is an intellectual pattern; it fights social pressures to conform
for the sake of "sensitivity" or whatever hairbrained excuse becomes
fashionable.
> 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.
As above, Pirsig would agree that democracy as practiced is a social
pattern. In Lila's Child, Pirsig defines laws as "intellectual rules for
social quality." (Note 128) Perhaps that helps clarify the difference.
> 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.
I'm shocked, shocked. Are you saying atoms and cockroaches do not exist
without our thinking and feeling about them? That there is no reality
independent of human observers? That evolutionary processes occur only in
the mind? Surely every bone in your scientific body rebels against such a
notion.
If you had said "experience belongs at every level," you'd be closer to
Pirsig's metaphysics and perhaps a more defensible scientific viewpoint.
After all, little critters seem to respond purposefully to their
environment, inferring they have an experience of some sort, even if a low
order. But intellect? Hardly.
I think part of the problem you, me, Bo and perhaps others are having is
the need to use intellectual patterns to question intellectual patterns.
We're caught in an infinite regress of abstractions from which we can't
escape. Except, "of that which we cannot speak we must be silent" as
Wittgenstein said or words to that effect. In other words, acknowledge the
existence of DQ and everything else we can't put into words, put
Rachmaninov's 3rd piano concerto on the hi-fi, and just listen.
Platt
P.S. Incidentally, as much as we love to quote Wittgenstein, he is no
Pirsig supporter. He wrote, "In the world everything is as it is, and
everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists."
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