[MD] Intelligence as different from intellect

[Steven Peterson]

Hi All,

I've been busy around the holidays. I've been following, but have not
found much time to interject. As usual, Bo's comments have little to
do with Pirsig's MOQ, so very quickly I want to respond to this:

Bo:
> The intellectual level is definitely  human because the social level is,
> but not all mankind has reached - "valued" perhaps - the intellectual
> level. In most people's opinion this sounds as slander as if meaning
> half-witted, but that is due to the "intelligence-intellect" confusion. All
> humankind is equally intelligent (with individual variations of course)
> but the 4th. level is not always valued - nay - is looked upon as
> pollution of VALUE itself. See how the desperately the last social
> stronghold - islam - fights intellectual value, the sinful Western ways
> they call. No level knows the level context of course

Steve:

How could a level either "know the level context" or not? The levels
do not know or not know. The levels refer to types of patterns of
value. The intellectual level of evolution is the collection of all
intellectual patterns of value. It is not something to be reached or
not reached. All people (with the exception of the mentally
handicapped) participate in intellectual patterns, but it makes no
sense to ask whether a person is "at the intellectual level" or not. A
body is a biological pattern. A personality is a social pattern. The
ideas a person hold are intellectual patterns.

As Pirsig commented in LC: "Both “the genius” and the mentally
retarded person are at the social level. At the intellectual level
would be the law that requires them to be treated equally."

Best,
Steve