From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Jul 14 2003 - 17:36:13 BST
Scott, Sam, Erin, Matt, All:
P
> > You've [Pi] put your finger squarely on the nut of the problem. Until
> > that infinite-regress paradox is addressed by each participant,
> > intellectual descriptions of the intellectual level will continue to go
> > around in circles without end.
S
> This is why I have continually recommended books on differential mysticism,
> in particular, Robert Magliola's *Derrida on the Mend*. It (the paradox) is
> also the driving force of what I have called Ironic Metaphysics. It takes
> this paradox as the starting point, that forces us to recognize that we
> cannot bottom out with clear and distinct ideas. Instead we have to bottom
> out with triples like Quality/DQ/SQ, and then ask: since this is
> undefinable, how to we proceed to think? I believe the solution is to be
> found by imitating the foundations of mathematics, which solved a similar
> problem with the axiomatic method.
First, thanks for addressing my observation head on. However, I have a
problem with finding a solution in imitating the foundations of
mathematics. Didn't Godel pretty much destroy the foundations of
mathematics with his Theorem, or at least shake that foundation?
>It won't be the same solution, since the
> issues metaphysics deals with are those that mathematics defines out of
> existence. The solution is really more of an attitude than a set of
> propositions, roughly that of recognizing that the Truth requires
> transcendence, so what we do here is propose various working definitions
> and see how far they take us. Which is, of course, what Pirsig says he is
> doing in Lila, but I think this needs to be moved from a methodological
> principle to a foundational one. That is, to see the paradox of the
> intellect trying to describe itself as being an instance of the process of
> creation. It is a case of the DQ/SQ conflict, and requires the logic of
> contradictory identity if we wish to approach it.
Yes. It's at such stuck points such as the paradox of intellectual
explanations of intellect that creative breakthroughs are required. I'm
not convinced the logic of contradictory identity is the best approach,
probably because I don't understand it.
P
> > I have yet to find anyone who has made a clear distinction between
> > intellectual patterns that belong in the intellectual level and those
> > that don't. (Intuitive intellect is an oxymoron.). If there are
> > intellectual patterns that don't belong, where do they go instead?
S
> Steiner's phrase is "intuitive thinking", not intellect, but I presume you
> would regard that as an oxymoron as well. It is referring to experience he
> and others claim to have have had, and is, I think, the same sort of
> experience that Franklin Merrell-Wolff is referring to with his term
> "introception" (a word he coined). Since it is an experience that is only
> available to a few is why I mentioned that I was getting esoteric. If you
> are interested in whether there is substance behind the phrase you would
> have to read their books and make your own judgment. (The other guy is
> Georg Kuhlewind, with an umlaut on the 'u', but I see that using my
> keyboard character didn't come through).
I haven't read the books you mention, but are they much different from
Shirley McClain's books and hundreds of others that talk about astral
planes, out of body experiences, encounters with aliens, etc.? Those also
purport to recount actual "experiences." Call me suspicious. Anyway, the
original question still remains whether there are any intellectual
patterns that don't belong in the intellectual level.
P
> > I have also yet to find anyone who has offered a better definition of
> > intellect than Pirsig's "manipulation of symbols." (Since that is the
> > author's definition, I take it to be "Q-intellect.") Anyone have a better
> > definition?
S
> Well, I find Pirsig's definition inadequate, for two reasons. The first is
> that it does not provide a means to distinguish automatic symbol
> manipulation as occurs in a computer (or in a brain) from human thinking,
> in which we are aware of what we are thinking, and feel that it is we who
> are doing (directing) the thinking. The second is that it does not account
> for hypothesis formation, in particular the "Aha!" experience, something
> which transcends manipulation.
On the first point, I don't think always being aware that we're using
symbols is vital to Pirsig's definition. On the second point, I don't
think it's necessary in defining intellect to also include in the
definition a description of that which might transcend it.
S
> My "definition" comes from Owen Barfield's book *Saving the Experiences*,
> what he calls alpha-thinking. It is the situation where thoughts take place
> in a subject/object setting, meaning that the thinker experiences the
> thinking as his or her own, not as coming from "outside", and in which the
> thought is about something that is assumed to not be part of the thinker
> (called the object of thought). Once one has this ability to distinguish
> the thinker from the thought about one can also carry out thinking in which
> the thinking is the object of thought. This occurs in doing mathematics,
> and, to relate this to the comment above, I believe can be a way of doing
> philosophy.
>
> Barfield's book argues that this kind of thinking evolved out of an earlier
> situation where the human being did not see himself as separated from the
> perceived world -- indeed that what we call thoughts were then perceived as
> coming from outside, and as connected to what we now call the object of
> perception.
Well, this puts us right back in the infinite regress soup again because
it raises the question of who sees the seer of our thoughts, and who sees
the seer who sees the seer of our thoughts, ad infinitum. Once you make
the S/O split, thoughts become objects of subjects.
> The reason for identifying this situation (the S/O divide) with the fourth
> level (or Q-intellect) is that it is only when you have a subject (the
> thinker feels that he is independent from the thought-about) is it possible
> for there to be an independent level that can be in conflict with the
> social level.
This seems to jibe with Sam's "individual" aspect of the fourth level
which I also like very much. But, it still doesn't break us out of the
eternal intellect vs. intellect paradox. But, as usual in these cases, the
solution has been obvious all along, obvious after absorbing the MOQ that
is but easily forgotten, at least in my case. Erin reminded me of it when
she responded to DMB's diatribe, "I classify ideas as high or low quality,
regardless of whose mouth they come out."
There's the big leap out of the box, or the "turn" as Matt might say. We
can argue about the intellectual level until the cows come home.
Eventually, each of us must decide "That's a good description," like
"That's a good dog." Or, "That's not a good description," like "That dog
won't hunt." In the end, Quality rules. Since it's a sense like taste,
touch, smell and sight, it cannot be intellectually described any more
than the beauty of a rose. But you know it from experience.
Platt
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