[MD] What Bo Doesn't Get

[KAYE PALM-LEIS]

Dan,
It is good to hear from you.

> Dan:
> Dynamic Quality can be change and it's motis operandi is uncertainty
> but I don't agree with Krimel's statement. Too vague.

Mati: Again I feel DQ is a topic that premature. The greater issue is
a better understanding of the static levels needs to be worked out.
I, with the greatest level of respect, feel that Pirsig was to vague
with intellect.  Pirsig wrote in his letter to Paul Turner, "When
getting into a definition of the intellectual level much clarity can
be gained by recognizing a parallel with the lower levels."  This I am
in agreement with, however his definition,""Intellect" can then be
defined very loosely as the level of independently manipulable signs."
unfortunately
does not provides the clarity that so much of his work does provide.

> Dan:
> Key word: think. "The intellectual level is simply thinking." [RMP
> annotation, LC) Makes sense to me.

Mati: Ok this is were we differ it makes no sense to me.  People since
the dawn of civilization have been thinking.  Don't people who
function at the social level have to think.  Pirsig suggested that the
social customs fail to be intellect, yet don't they require thinking.
I think they do!

>> Mati: I think of the early primitive art in which animals were drawn
>> on the cave wall, from my perspective they certainly were thinking
>> about the animals and were conveying them in a temporal interpretation
>> of the animals themselves. Based on what you suggest they must have
>> been intellectual.  I would suggest they were displaying behavior that
>> had an intelligence, but they were not intellectual.  Intellect
>> requires a metaphysical basis.  That basis did not exist in a capacity
>> to sustain itself as a level until Aristotle's S/O divide. I think
>> there is a common agreement that intelligence existed long before
>> intellect.
>
> Dan:
> Disagree. I think Robert Pirsig disagrees as well:

Mati: I don't clearly see the disagreement, perhaps you be more specific.

Pirsig:
> "Within this evolutionary relationship it is possible to see that
> intellect has functions that predate science and philosophy. The
> intellect's evolutionary purpose has never been to discover an
> ultimate meaning of the universe. That is a relatively recent fad. Its
> historical
> purpose has been to help a society find food, detect danger, and
> defeat enemies. It can do this well or poorly, depending on the tools
> it invents for this purpose." [LILA]

Mati: The same can be said of the social level, but that isn't the
point as I see it. At the social level didn't people have to "think"
to accomplish the same thing.  What seems relatively obvious is that
intellect allowed us to achieve that purpose better.


> Dan:
> It seems clear that intellect requires no metaphysical basis. That
> came later. Furthermore, by equating subject/object thinking with
> intellect, you've effectively nullified the Metaphysics of Quality as
> a working thesis. Subjects and objects are united under a larger
> umbrella of understanding based on value.

Mati: Ok I am going out on the limb and say there was no valid (as a
static level that could sustain itself) metaphysical basis for reality
before SOM.  SOM provided that basis.  It nullifies nothing. The
question seems to be is that S/O as a basis for intellect, is too
narrow. I contend not. There simply has been other metaphysical basis
that has sustained itself and accomplished the said purposes that
Pirsig outlined.  I am not aware of any other metaphysical construct
that accomplish this feat.

> Dan:
> What is the problem? Perhaps if you specify we can work out a solution
> mutually understandable.

Mati: The problem is that Pirsig definition does not accomplish or
tell us much metaphysically speaking.  It is too broad and I fear has
a greater capacity to nullify MoQ accomplishment.

>>> [Mati]
>>> The point is when we discuss something that can defined metaphysically has
>>> always come home to the S/O reality.
>
> Dan:
> That doesn't mean S/O reality is intellect though.

Mati: What else can it mean, everytime we yell Intellect, S/O comes a
running. :-)

>> Mati: It is not clearly wrong from my humble perspective, based on
>> what you believe is the metaphysical value of intellect. It seems that
>> some other might have come to the same conclusion as Bo has suggested.
>>  The problem is SOM has created a messy web which tangles our notion
>> of who we are.  Bo's notions rids the tangles and puts intellect in
>> it's proper place and allows MoQ to be the next possible level.
>> Otherwise MoQ seems fail to gather any meaning with any legitimacy.
>
> Dan:
> I'm sorry Mati, but I think you need a refresher course. Please take
> the time to re-read chapter 12 of LILA. No more talking to Bo, please.

Mati: Sure I can read Chapter 12 again, but not talking to Bo would
be, based on the moral of intellect, a low quality decision.  Anyway
we have been talking for many years so any damage that could be done
has long occurred. :-)

> Dan:
> If? Mati, you seem an intelligent sort. If? Tell me, if the MOQ isn't
> an idea, what is it? I've asked Bo the same thing and have never
> recieved an answer. Don't you see that it makes no sense whatsoever?

Mati: Sure it an idea, so what?  So does what I am making for dinner,
it is based on an idea. There are countless ideas, that doesn't tell
us anything. There are idea at the social level and at the
intellectual level.  The question is which values guide our decisions
and how and why.

> Mati:
>   I have privately
>> discussed this issue at length with Bo.
>
> Dan:
> Oh Lord in heaven help us all.

Mati: Too late!

>>> [Mati]
>>> The metaphysical path of "encoding of experience into concepts" is a
>>> dead end that gets nowhere metaphysically speaking in the same manner
>>> as SOM.  Bo's simply points that out.
>
> Dan:
> If I might ask, where did you get the quote "encoding of experience
> into concepts"? Is it one of Bo's?

Mati: Nope it's Krimel, read the earlier post.

> Dan:
> No this isn't right. I don't even know how to untangle it.

Mati: If we stick with Pirsig definition I would suggest that no one
would be able to, that is the problem.

Finally I would again suggest that with a great deal of respect that
Pirsig has given us so much.  I feel very uneasy to be so critical of
this single point of intellect. But as we all must be is true to what
we believe is right, intellectual morals dictate that to be so.  It is
clear that you and Krimel share similar ideas and that Bo and I share
similar ideas.  My concern is that we never be able to iron out our
differences and that MoQ will fail serving mankind philosophically in
a greater capacity than this forum. Yet as a optimist perhaps we can
hope to see it in our life time.

Respectfully,
Mati