From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Wed Jul 16 2003 - 04:16:25 BST
Squonk,
sq: Look Scott, why don't you just speak for yourself? It would be
easier if you just stated what you believe without reference to
Skutvik. I suggest this because if you openly ask any one from the
forum to state quite unequivocally that they agree 100% with
Skutvik's doctrine, i can almost guarantee that no one will do so. I
know because i asked that question about a year ago and no one
answered, which may be why Skutvik decided to leave at that time?
Where did this come from? I have always been speaking for myself. And
I have only been "referencing" Bo in this thread because you said
that if anyone agrees with Bo on the S/O divide as the start of the
fourth level then that person is promoting racism in the forum.
Since I see this as an illogical and a harmful charge I've been
fighting it.
sq: I don't know - i can only assure you that the archive shows this
to be so: No one agreed with the Skutvik doctrine enough to offer
support.
A year ago is when you were putting out those inflammatory "Captain
Bo" posts. I assume that, like me, most people just didn't want
anything to do with them.
sq: But people may agree with you?
In part. I don't think anybody agrees with anybody 100%. I would hope
not, since otherwise there wouldn't be anything to talk about.
sq: If there are differences between you and Skutvik, what are they
please?
I would have to go back over a couple of years to find out
specifically. I do disagree with the SOLAQI title, since I do not
consider S/O thinking to be the whole of Q-Intellect. Just its
origin (an origin that is still going on).
sq: Perhaps it will be good to state my view first, which is simple
enough:
sq: In my view, intellect is very much older than recorded history. In
my view, intellect and intelligence are the same thing. In my view,
the intellectual level of the MoQ existed and evolved simultaneously
with the social level for a period of time very much older than
recorded history. In my view, All levels are continuing to evolve
simultaneously, and interacting simultaneously.
sq: I feel the intellect is primarily an aesthetic sense of Quality. I
feel the creations of the intellect can be taken to be the mythos. I
feel our mythos is dominated by artistic creations of the intellect
which happen to be thought of in terms of subjects and objects. The
metaphysics of Quality is older than ancient Greek culture, but has
been modified to include evolution.
sq: I hope that has intellectual integrity enough for you?
Yes. My objection to the idea that the social and intellectual levels
are simultaneous is that it doesn't explain how the fourth level is
in conflict with the third. Since that is what the book Lila is all
about: how different people have different moral values depending on
which level they are evaluating on, I think this is an important
issue.
My position is that mythos, past or present, is third level, and logos
is fourth level. It is when I rationally object to a social pattern
that I deem harmful (e.g., too much television watching among
Americans, too much "my country right or wrong", etc.) that (or so I
hope) I am in a fourth/third level conflict. When I shout "free
love" I am deluding myself on that score. And so on. There is no
evidence of this kind of rational objection to the contemporary
mythos before 500 BC and plenty afterwards. Hence I see the
emergence of the fourth level at that time.
So, similarly, I question your succeeding statements:
"I feel the intellect is primarily an aesthetic sense of Quality." I
would say, rational sense of Quality. Aesthetic sense of Quality
currently depends on the S/O divide (this is complicated, so I won't
go into it now), and -- or so I conjecture -- involves its momentary
transcendence.
"I feel the creations of the intellect can be taken to be the mythos."
I see the creations of the intellect to be science, philosophy,
theology, art (not necessarily an exhaustive list). These activities
depend on the mythos, and change it (so now our current mythos is
dualistic), but the creations of intellect are -- like the MOQ --
often in conflict with the mythos. Prior to 500 BC I see no evidence
of such conflct.
"I feel our mythos is dominated by artistic creations of the intellect
which happen to be thought of in terms of subjects and objects." Why
artistic? I am aware that you think of mathematics (and I presume
science) as capable of "beauty", and I agree that mathematicians (and
myself) have expressed this idea, but I think it is a case of using
"beauty" (or "aesthetic") metaphorically. A work of art shows its
beauty from the outside, while mathematics shows its Quality from
the inside. I do not think they are the same. To conflate everything
to aesthetics is not what Pirsig did (he called his work a
Metaphysics of Quality, not a Metaphysics of Beauty) which is why I
wonder why you consider yourself to not be adding anything to
Pirsig's work.
Then there is the phrase "thought of in terms of subjects and
objects", and I believe elsewhere you say that the S/O divide is an
intellectual act. In some esoteric sense it might be, but it is not
an act that we make consciously, and (I believe) never did. It was
an evolution of consciousness, not some person's or group of
persons' idea.
"The metaphysics of Quality is older than ancient Greek culture, but
has been modified to include evolution."
Yes, as Pirsig describes in Ch. 30 of Lila, the basic notion that all
comes from Quality is older. This stage Barfield calls "original
participation". But this "notion" was not an intellectual one, but a
perceptual one. Our current stage is one where this perceiving of
Quality has died out (with rare exceptions, one being aesthetic
moments, another being "Aha" moments), and (following Barfield) it
is this dying out that makes the intellectual possible. But, with
the MOQ (and other philosophies, like Barfield's and Wilber's), one
sees the intellectual level rediscovering it. When (if) the MOQ
becomes ingrained (and we are a very long way from that), we
facilitate the recovery of that Quality in our everyday lives (what
Barfield calls "final participation"). But it will be different from
original participation, in that it will be seen as Quality from
within, not as coming from the gods.
- Scott
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 17 2003 - 08:42:17 BST