From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Thu Sep 18 2003 - 08:37:44 BST
Paul and All.
You are an expert in throwing quotations at me, relevant no doubt, but
Pirsig has said many things. As you will see.
I just found a Pirsig letter from 1993 wherein I had asked
"As a matter of fact I have always been a little intrigued by this level
(intellect) You pinpoint its "breakthrough" (in the Western World at
least) to the end of the First World War, but its emergence has always
been a puzzle to me".
PIRSIG replied:
"The emergence of the intellectual level is most closely associated in
my mind with the ancient Greek philosophers and particularly
Socrates who continually pitted truth-seeking against social
conformity. This seems why they killed him
I see that you differentiate between a subjectivity relating to the socio-
intellect aggregate and a "mind"-subjectivity at the intellectual level
Paul (the 15th in this thread)
> In the MOQ, "subjective" is social-intellectual patterns. Mind is
> intellectual patterns. Pirsig is talking about subject-object
> metaphysics equating subjective with mind, not the MOQ:
...but do you think a living soul is able to understand the nature of this
difference?
> "A conventional subject-object metaphysics uses the same four static
> patterns as the Metaphysics of Quality, dividing them into two groups of two: inorganic-biological patterns
> called "matter" and social-intellectual patterns called "mind". But this division is the source of the
> problem." [Lila p.177]
SOM's most "conventional" off-spring is the mind/matter schism,
if this is to be replaced by the MOQ it must be "devoured" properly, it
can't be kept (in one fashion) as an intellectual pattern, in another
fashion as the inorg+org=object ..etc. and - above all - its "mind"
"component" can't be made into MOQ's intellect. In the latter case
one automatically draws this "diagram" of the MOQ:
Inorg+Bio+Socio (=objective)/Intellect (=subjective).
> He equates mind, thoughts and ideas with intellectual patterns > several times:
Yes, and also says that the "mind" term should be avoided ...which is
impossible, this is the knot that the SOL cuts through:
> "In Lila, I never defined the intellectual level of the MOQ, since
> everyone who is up to reading Lila already knows what "intellectual"
> means.
Right, but the dictionaries does not define intellect/intellectual as
"mind". My "Oxford Advanced" says: "Power of the mind to reason,
contrasted with feeling and instinct". Which means that there is an
emotional MIND as well as an instinctive MIND.
> For purposes of MOQ precision, let's say that the intellectual
> level is the same as mind. It is the collection and manipulation of
> symbols, created in the brain, that stand for patterns of experience."
> [Lila's Child p.64]
Yes, and it creates an intellectual level where experience is an
abstract variety of the real experience at the other levels ...exactly as
the SOM.
It should have said: "It is the VALUE of a division between symbols
and experience itself.
> [Paul:]
> "Intellect is simply thinking, and one can think without involving the
> subject-object relationship." [Lila's Child p.289]
Yes, one can "think", and that was/is done when we are at the social
level. But one cannot REASON without it and that is intellect defined
by dictionaries.
> ..you refer to your interpretation of Pirsig as if it is what he
> secretly intended. I have no problem whatsoever with discussing
> interpretations, modifications, even pragmatist strong misreadings as
> long as we are clear on where we have knowingly changed the meaning of
> Pirsig's [or anyone else's] terms to suit our proposal. For example,
> your argument above could read:
> "It would be better if "thinking" was not the definition of the
> intellectual level because..."
I stand corrected, but we would soon tire of such a "caveat" at the end
of each sentence. And about Pirsig's intentions. Except for the cited
letter, there are many indications of an intellect that fits the S/O
interpretation, for example this from.
Lila Chapter 20:
> Perhaps in Homer's time, when evolution had not
> yet transcended the social level into the intellectual....
You have surely denied it before, but at Homer's time (4000 years
ago) the intellectual level had not been established and he wrote the
"Iliad" without having "symbol manipulation" at his disposal?
Sincerely
Bo
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