From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Sun Jul 20 2003 - 16:26:25 BST
Platt, Pi and Multitude.
Both of you seem to despair over the problem the current intellect
creates so I hope you are open for the solution
13 July you wrote (to Pi) who had said
> >I personally took about 2 years to completely draw a boundary
> > around this thing called the intellectual pattern. Part of the whole
> > problem of intellectualizing intellectual patterns is that when you
> > try to draw a line around it, you have to draw a line around the
> > line drawing process!
> You've 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.
> 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?
> 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?
I have been exchanging letters privately with a guy about the MOQ,
Naturally I have force-fed him with my S/OL interpretation of intellect
and the other day I got a message about it and his questions started
a small understanding why this definition - the one that puts an end to
the infinite regress problem - have such a hard time.
He asked:
> Is SOL as Quality Intellect the only form of intellect? I understand
> that REASON=intellectual awareness, and that SOL is based on
> reason. From that stand point then perhaps MOQ comes from SOL
> leaving the SOM behind. Can Reason alone
> support a concept such as aesthetics and if so then how?
It was the "other forms" and "aesthetics" that triggered my Eureka and
made me understand why people reserve themselves and/or say that
the S/OL goes too far .. is too limiting ..is ugly etc. They think about
concepts like aesthetics, intuition, intelligence, .. things beyond the
S/O divide and want Q-intellect defined in such a way that it supports
all these. Even Pirsig of LC seems to have joined the chase.
But all these things are facets of the dynamical aspect of existence -
out of which Phaedrus picked "the mother of them all" QUALITY. To a
lesser or greater extent they all share the same ambiguity that makes
it possible to construct a metaphysics similar to the MOQ around
them. This does not diminish P's achievement one iota, his stroke of
genius was to identify and challenge the SOM, then replace its S/O
slash with the Dynamic/Static one.
As the present top level Intellect is our age's REASON and reason
can neither explain Quality nor its many variants. That's the whole
point of my insistence upon Q-intellect being S/OL (subject-object
logic). Intellect can't explain any of these ambiguous yet unavoidable
phenomena. It can't explain intelligence* in animals without reverting
to the slanderous "instinct" term, it can't explain our sense of beauty
..etc, .but places them all in its subjective box. Not part of reality!
I don't claim that the S/OL-intellect explains and/or support these
outsider phenomena, on the contrary I claim that Q-intellect must be
S/OL because it DOESN'T support them! This is the great fallacy to
believe that a STATIC level may contain/explain/support the dynamic
aspects of existence and is why I am a little exasperated over the
"thinking"/ "manipulation of symbols" intellect as if this is capable of
integrating them ...... Come to think of it, even "thinking" is one such.
One may as well wish for an intellect that could explain/contain DQ
itself ...and that is the next fallacy. Calling the MOQ an intellectual
pattern.
Intellect is a STATIC level per definition and on page 167 in LILA
Pirsig says:
"..Finally there's a dynamic morality which isn't a code, he supposed
you could call it a code of Art."
In other words Aesthetics, sense of Beauty ...along with the rest of
the many-splendour DQ don't fit anywhere inside the static hierarchy.
Why not admit that Intellect is a STATIC level and stop this futile
chase after one's own tail, namely a fancy enough intellect to explain
DQ and its many aspects.
The below paragraph touches the essence of it all.
> 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?
Yes, "intuitive intellect" is an oxymoron as is the thinking intellect.
They are all facets of existence's dynamics - DQ called - and don't
belong in the static hierarchy - intellect least of all.
All this does not violate Pirsig's claim that an encyclopedia of the four
STATIC levels would cover everything except DQ because the said
phenomena are facets of DQ. Efforts to define an intellect that
includes these is counter to the MOQ, and I simply can't understand
the annotating Pirsig about the MOQ being a pattern of its own
intellectual pattern, nor do I understand various suggestions from
other people about removing intellect, changing its name ...about
adding more intellects, about intellect's values being social, and so on
ad nauseam. All such are patch-ups of our inability to let go of SOM.
Thanks for your patience.
Bo
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