From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Fri Oct 03 2003 - 17:48:18 BST
Hi "Lila Squad".
Paul has published a letter from Pirsig (29 Sep.) Sam calls it "grist for
our mill" and I believe we can treat it that way, RMP says it is no Papal
Bull. But let me stress again that even if there are points of
disagreement with the master, the MOQ in general stands tall and my
criticism is nothing compared to Pirsig's enormous achievement. I can
never stress that enough.Now, to the letter where I go straight for the
juicy part.
ROBERT PIRSIG 23rd SEPTEMBER 2003:
> Another subtler confusion exists between the word, "intellect," that can
> mean thought about anything and the word, "intellectual," where abstract
> thought itself is of primary importance. Thus, though it may be assumed
> that the Egyptians who preceded the Greeks had intellect, it can be
> doubted that theirs was an intellectual culture.
Here's our bone of contention. Intellect before the intellectual level? As
I see it - and from Pirsig's observations below - this is what we usually
calls INTELLIGENCE something that stretches all the way down to
the inorganic level. Along with many such "unassimilated" qualities
aesthetics -art - intuition it is a different aspect of QUALITY itself. We
need to start discussing that some day.
What's important here is that it has nothing to do with the static
intellectual level which is about abstraction according to Pirsig. IMO
the abstract/concrete DIVIDE not "abstract thought" ....because this
immediately leads into the same maze. Egyptians certainly were
thinking abstract thoughts ...thoughts or language are abstract in
themselves! Thoughts about thoughts brings no clarity either.
> When getting into a definition of the intellectual level much clarity
> can be gained by recognizing a parallel with the lower levels. Just as
> every biological pattern is also inorganic, but not all inorganic
> patterns are biological; and just as every social level is also
> biological, although not all biological patterns are social; so every
> intellectual pattern is social although not all social patterns are
> intellectual.
These are important points.
> Handshaking, ballroom dancing, raising one's right hand
> to take an oath, tipping one's hat to the ladies, saying "Gesundheit!"
> after a sneeze-there are trillions of social customs that have no
> intellectual component. Intellectuality occurs when these customs as
> well as biological and inorganic patterns are designated with a sign
> that stands for them and these signs are manipulated independently of
> the patterns they stand for. "Intellect" can then be defined very
> loosely as the level of independently manipulable signs. Grammar,
> logic and mathematics can be described as the rules of this sign
> manipulation.
As said language is manipulation of concepts that stand for
something and if so the intellectual level reaches back to God knows
when and that is not correct according to Pirsig.
> Just when the evolution of the intellectual level from the social
> level took place in history can only be speculated on. I certainly
> wasn't there when it happened. Julian Jaynes', "The Origin of
> Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind," has impressed
> me, but other speculation seems valid. Solon, the Athenian lawgiver,
> could be the pivotal point. Maybe Solomon. Maybe the early Greek
> philosophers. Who knows? But if one studies the early books of the
> Bible or if one studies the sayings of primitive tribes today, the
> intellectual level is conspicuously absent. The world is ruled by Gods
> who follow social and biological patterns and nothing else.
Pirsig sees the intellectual level emerging around the time described
in ZMM and this strongly indicates a S/O-intellect, but it seems to be
anathema around this site :-) But why despair about the social-
intellectual transition, after all Pirsig treats the inorganic-organic one in
great detail. I think the Jaynes trail is terribly promising.
> There has been a tendency to extend the meaning of "social" down into
> the biological with the assertion that, for example, ants are social,
> but I have argued that this extends the meaning to a point where it is
> useless for classification. I said that even atoms can be called
> societies of electrons and protons. And since everything is thus
> social, why even have the word?
Yes, that was once a big debate!
> I think the same happens to the term,
> "intellectual," when one extends it much before the Ancient Greeks.*
> If one extends the term intellectual to include primitive cultures
> just because they are thinking about things, why stop there?
Amen!
> How about
> chimpanzees? Don't they think? How about earthworms? Don't they make
> conscious decisions? How about bacteria responding to light and
> darkness? How about chemicals responding to light and darkness? Our
> intellectual level is broadening to a point where it is losing all its
> meaning.
Great!
> You have to cut it off somewhere, and it seems to me the
> greatest meaning can be given to the intellectual level if it is
> confined to the skilled manipulation of abstract symbols that have no
> corresponding particular experience and which behave according to
> rules of their own.
"....no corresponding experience" That's abstract abstractions and
resembles Scott's about S/O leaving the simple form and subjects
becomes objects ...etc. Anyway I find intellect better defined as the
SYMBOL/EXPERIENCE divide rather than the ABILITY to manipulate
symbols, because it leads nowhere and everywhere. There is nothing
but symbol-manipulation: Socially a facial expression called a smile
symbolize "benevolence", biologically certain wavelengths of light
symbolize "colors" ...etc ad infinitum.
> I'm not sure if all of this defines the intellectual level any better
> than before, or if any such definition is useful. It may be that the
> intellectual level cannot describe itself any better than an eye can
> directly see itself, but has to find itself in mirrors of one sort or
> another.
Here Pirsig treats Q-intellect much like SOM's mind and if SOM is
rejected I find it strange that intellect should assume that role.
> In a scientific materialist mirror there is no such thing as
> intellect since it has no mass or energy that can be objectively
> measured. From a philosophic idealist viewpoint there is nothing but
> intellect. From a Zen viewpoint it is a part of the world of everyday
> affairs that one leaves behind upon becoming enlightened and then
> rediscovers from a Buddha's point of view. But for anyone who really
> wants to know what intellect is I think definitions are not the place
> to start. Since definitions are a part of the intellectual level the
> only person who will understand a definition of intellect is a person
> who already is intellectual and thus has the answer before he ever
> asks.
The MOQ is a new metaphysics that RE-DEFINES everything,
thereby nothing really corresponds to SOM so why all this over
something that has no counterpart anywhere? The thing to do is what
Phaedrus of ZMM did: Treat the S/O as intellect's value?
> Perhaps you can pass all this along to the Lila Squad with the caveat
> that this is not a Papal Bull, as some would have it, or just plain
> bull, as others will see it, but merely another opinion on the subject
> that it is hoped will help.
Sincerely
Bo.
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