From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Tue Dec 23 2003 - 02:13:11 GMT
Hi Bo,
> Bo earlier:
>>> Does Pirsig say that subjects and objects belong to the intellectual
>>> level?
>
>> I didn't want to say that subject and objects belong to the intellectual
>> level. I need to distinguish symbols and their referents to be more clear.
>
>> Intellect is the manipulation of symbols in both the MOQ and SOM.
>
> Steve, this brings us nowhere, let me just try another angle, terribly
> irrelevant, but bear with me.
Steve:
Ok, but first let me clarify that in my understanding of the MOQ, it is
itself an intellectual pattern. That is to say that for me, intellect goes
all the way down when we talk about the static levels. Any talk of patterns
relies on intellect to infer the pattern. When we talk about an inorganic
pattern of value such as gravity, we are talking about an inference from
experience--gravity as an idea--an intellectual pattern of value. But there
is another high quality intellectual pattern of value that says that
"gravity" is a description of experience that exists outside thought--that
if I weren't thinking about gravity, I'd still be experiencing it. Yes,
that's an SOM assumption, but it still seems like a good one to make.
Within the broader context of the MOQ we can take out the old SOM
intellectual patterns and give them another look and see which ones are
still any good.
>> Steve: I'm fine with thinking of intellect in terms of a symbol/experience
>> distinction though I don't buy your claim that symbols are subjective and
>> experience objective.
>
> Maybe you don't buy it, but look at this by Amilcar Kabral over at
> the MF
>
>>> When RMP writes "independently manipulable signs" i think he's
>>> referring to the fact that we have pictures, signs and words in our
>>> heads that only 'stand for' what we see/hear/feel in the external
>>> world.
>
> This is SOM and it follows inevitably from the symbol-manipulating
> intellect, regardless what twists and turns you may do to try to
> avoid it.
Yes, this is SOM-type thinking but it is contained within the broader
context of the MOQ which says that dynamic experience leaves static patterns
in its wake. The idea that there is a world 'out there' that our
intellectual patterns 'stand for' is a high quality intellectual pattern of
value created by dynamic experience.
Maybe we are moving toward some agreement, since I too see intellect as
relying on a symbol/experience distinction. We seem to disagree that the
MOQ is an expansion of rationality that adds the contextualization of
thinking as a type of experience so that ideas and morals are no less real
than rocks and trees. So the distinction between symbol and experience is
replaced by the intellectual pattern of thinking about symbols as
intellectual patterns that stand for inorganic patterns, biological
patterns, social patterns, or other intellectual patterns.
To have any "independently manipulable signs" we do simultaneously need the
pattern of thought that these signs stand for something else. That is the
beginning of intellect. But at that point, it is still not the beginning of
SOM, since at that point, there is no such thing as philosophy--no thinking
about thinking, no self-awareness that we are having thoughts that are
independent of an external world that will go on regardless of what we think
about it, no objectivity or subjectivity.
Bo:
> Way back I made a list of the "expressions" (I called) connected
> with each level:
>
> Interaction - Sensation - Emotion - Reason.
>
> The first is more for rhyme's sake, but the rest has proved
> extremely useful in understanding the MOQ - a "task" that has two
> big obstacles: The first one is a mindish interpretation of intellect
> and the second is diminishing the social level.
>
> You once said that I "courted" DMB, this was for his strong
> defence of the social reality. For a long time he seemed to draw
> the correct conclusion from his own reasoning, but suddenly
> changed course. Anyway, the 3rd. level is one of outmost
> importance and required as much mental power as intellect, yet,
> its expression is definitely EMOTIONAL , ref. Homer's "Iliad" which
> is one long tale of unfetterd such. The blurb on the cover says:
>
> "The stirring story of the Trojan War and the RAGE of Achilles
> has gripped listeners and readers for 2700 years. This timeless,
> powerful poem still vividly conveys the horror and the heroism of
> men and gods wrestling with TOWERING EMOTIONS ...etc." (my
> capitals)
Steve:
I also associate emotions with the social level.
> Now, to my point. What replaced the mythological era was the age
> of reason (that's applies regardless the MOQ) and the conclusion
> to draw is: If one identifies the myth era with the social level - and
> this is characterized by emotions - then the intellectual level must
> be expressed by reason! (and that reason is the S/O distinction
> can't be denied).
Steve:
I also associate reason with the intellectual level. If you mean S/O
distinction as experience/symbol distinction then I think I agree. Pirsig
cites ancient Greece as the beginning of the intellectual level, but the
experience symbol distinction is much older. I have always thought of that
reference to ancient Greece in Lila as a reference to the beginning of
thinking about thinking where the symbols that stand for patterns of
experience can now stand for intellectual patterns of value instead of just
inorganic, biological, and social patterns. It is only at this point that
intellectual patterns could be consciously examined and subjective/objective
distinctions could be made. Of course we know such distinctions were made
and later solidified in what we now know as SOM.
Bo:
> I could go on, f.ex refer to the analysis of Islam vs The West as
> society vs intellect, something I know that Pirsig endorses. It's
> plain that Islam reflects Emotions: The public burial scenes of
> naked grief; the street rallies of as naked hatred, the devotion of the
> Sep.11 "pilots". This compared to how embarrassing such behavior
> seems to the average Westerner, our skepticism regarding emotion
> and attempts to avoid it in judicial proceedings ....everything fits the
> social=emotion, intellect=reason scheme. As plain is it that
> intellect has nothing to do with "manipulation of symbols" or (least
> of all) "mental activity".
>
> But in spite of this indicators of the true nature of the social-
> intellectual relation, when members this discussion group is called
> upon to define these two levels, they seem to abandon "reason":
> Society retreats back into pre-pre-historic time to become some
> insignificant episode between Biology and Intellect, and intellect
> follows this drift back to have its origin in song-and-dance rituals.
> Even Pirsig lapses into these notions so remote from his own
> convincing presentation of intellect's emergence out of society in
> ZMM. Strange as he - in the letter to Paul - speaks about so recent
> times as Homer and the biblical prophets as pre-intellectual.
Steve:
In all this I think your making the mistake of defining the static patterns
in terms of representing a type of person or a stage in history. I don't
think doing so helps us understand what distinguishes the types of patterns.
On the contrary, I think understanding the types of patterns is what helps
us understand people and historical progressions.
If am right that you are attacking the problem backwards, then I can
understand why you would want to think of the MOQ as a new level. One who
has the expanded rationality of the MOQ is a new type of person and if such
a view became dominant we would have a new stage in history. I forget most
of my Wilberese, but I know Wilber would refer to one who understands the
inter-workings of the levels as being "second tier."
Regards,
Steve
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