Re: MD Intellectual level - New letter from Pirsig

From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sun Oct 12 2003 - 18:54:57 BST

  • Next message: David MOREY: "Re: MD Intellectual level - New letter from Pirsig"

    Hi Mark

    I agree, clearly there is a form of social intelligence before
    we reach the more abstarct and individualistic intellectual-symbolic level.
    But hey, rituals have to contain symbols as well, that's why the chicken
    gets it instead of me in the sacrifice.

    regards
    David M
      ----- Original Message -----
      From: Valuemetaphysics@aol.com
      To: moq_discuss@moq.org
      Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 10:45 PM
      Subject: Re: MD Intellectual level - New letter from Pirsig

      In a message dated 10/11/03 9:28:07 PM GMT Daylight Time, DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org writes:

        David Morey asked:
        Can ritual exist without language?
        Could humans copy each other's actions
        visually and form rituals? If so is ritual a form of intelligence?
        Is ritual the manipulation of the visual language?

      Hi David,
      From Lila:

      "He could only guess how far back this ritual-cosmos relationship went,
      maybe fifty or one hundred thousand years. Cavemen are usually depicted
      as hairy, stupid creatures who don't do much, but anthropological
      studies of contemporary primitive tribes suggest that stone age people
      were probably bound by ritual all day long. There's a ritual for
      washing, for putting up a house, for hunting, for eating and so on - so
      much so that the division between 'ritual' and 'knowledge' becomes
      indistinct. In cultures without books ritual seems to be a public
      library for teaching the young and preserving common values and
      information." [LILA, p.442/443]

      If ritual and knowledge become indistinct then, while social patterns are very much dominant there also evolves intellectual value of increasing sophistication - and this may have been happening for tens of thousands of years before knowledge became so sophisticated that it began to dominate social patterns?
      It is know known that observing the behaviour of others induces copy cat responses in the brains of the observer. This may be one of the factors in master and student relationships; the student observes and learns without being taught.
      Mark

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