From: Mati Palm-Leis (mpalm@merr.com)
Date: Mon Nov 24 2003 - 04:45:30 GMT
Platt,
You wrote:
"Thanks for making my point Mr. Campbell.
Since Pirsig equates 'thinking' with intellect, I push intellect back
to early man as the main characteristic that distinguishes humans from
animals. I agree with Paul, however, that intellectual patterns per se
did not arise until the emergence of writing and the ability to 'think
about thinking," or as Paul put it, "latching thoughts as patterns of
thoughts."
Whether an entire culture like Egypt can be called 'intellectual' is
also a matter of conjecture, especially when one tries to apply the
same appellation to the U.S. :-)"
Where to start?
I have come to the point where I do believe that the intellectual level
as has be been discussed by Bodvar, others and even hinted, though not
committed to, by Pirsig himself.
Here is my rational. It is based on what is the Social Level. In my
thinking it revolves around "Social learning" as a phenomenon.
Biologically living creatures living in groups developed the capacity to
communicate to one another in a way that was not biologically rooted.
Most all living creatures have the capacity to learn from there
inorganic and biological environments. But to learn from your biological
species is a different matter. It further developed the capacity of
species to survive and evolve. This is the underpinning in my mind of
the social level.
Early man in many ways was similar to the animals around him and his
biological will to survive. However man's capacity to learn socially
grew. This was in large part with the development of language. Groups
of early men created tribes or clans. With each step of the evolutionary
process these group grew more sophisticated and so did there language
and so did there capacity to survive. Socially man evolved in leaps and
bounds through the capacity to socially learn from groups before them. A
knowledge base was created that was the building block to socially
evolve into primitive civilizations. The point is the sole purpose up
to this point is only insuring man's capacity to survive. The mythos was
part of the natural progression in asking why? Why does the thunder
come from the heavens etc. They provided socially anthropomorphized
answers. For the most these answers were socially benign and didn't
impact the capacity to survive.
Then there are the early Greeks philosophers, Thales, Anaximander,
Anaximenes, and others that try something different. They tried to
define reality as a rational thought. Not until Aristotle
Subject/Object split was the intellectual latch provided for the
capacity for intellectual level. The intellectual pattern value is also
rooted to further help man's capacity to survive. Through intellect we
have capacity to understand the value of democracy. Democracy provides
for educated people of that nation to make informed decisions about
their lives through their governments. Go back to those early clans or
the early Egyptians and share the idea democracy with them. It has no
value to them; intellectually they didn't have the capacity. This is
the current struggle in Iraq, which is a strongly rooted social system.
The success of the US will be based on their capacity to build the
intellectual capacity of the country. My concern here is the US will
pull out before an intellectual capacity will be developed.
Anyway I thought I would share.
Mati
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