[MD] What Bo Doesn't Get

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Andre,

 Andre:
> Hi Steve (thanks for the reference) and Krimel:
> If Pirsig suggests that intellectual patterns are found existing after
> the beginning of history ( as I understand this; the time when people
> began to record things in writing?...most of which evidence has not
> survived of course) then who am I to argue? If this is the MoQ
> understanding then so be it...and it does open up a different
> understanding for me (which is great!).
>
> The cave paintings in the south of France for example (earlier
> mentioned here) are not simply paintings of animals. Keeping in mind
> Campbell's 'Masks of God, these were depictions of rituals, of gods (
> in the form of for. ex.  an ox, cow, lion or bison). We are witnessing
> the very first creations, through paintings, of the mythos.
>


Steve:
These paintings are probably pre-historic, aren't they? So we may not
be able to assume that those painting them participated in
intellectual patterns. Your mention of rituals suggests that these
people's actions where not justified intellectually. They simply
participated in rituals (social patterns). These social patterns were
precursors to the first intellectual patterns but not intellectual
patterns. Intellectual patterns are habits of mind, ways of drawing
inferences--of justifying behavior.

Pirsig:
"Cave men 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.
These rituals may be the connecting link between the social and
intellectual levels of evolution.  One can imagine primitive song-rituals
and dance-rituals associated with certain cosmology stories, myths, which
generated the first primitive religions.  From these the first intellectual
truths could have been derived.  If ritual always comes first and
intellectual principles always come later, then ritual cannot always be a
decadent corruption of intellect.  Their sequence in history suggests that
principles emerge from ritual, not the other way around.  That is, we don't
perform religious rituals because we believe in God.  We believe in God
because we perform religious rituals.  If so, that's an important principle
in itself."



Andre:
> These rituals gave expression to the ideas people had about the world
> around (and above) them.

Steve:
By the "mythos over logos argument" this is backwards if we want to be
precise about what Pirsig means by ideas. Ideas only have meaning
because of the the rituals and stories that give rise to them.
Intellectual patterns are patterns of symbol manipulation. The symbols
have meaning because of the rituals and stories.


Andre:
> It seems to me that Bodvar strongly identifies with intellect being
> the logos (and the mythos, social) and that this intellect has won out
> over the mythos (which, according to this [MoQ] reasoning it must,
> because it is a higher level of evolution).

Steve:
I think associating the logos with intellect and the mythos with
social patterns is MOQ correct.

Andre:
> This view has been challenged and ridiculed for longer than a decade
> on this Discuss and remains so.
> It appears that Pirsig challenges this as well in this annotation 45.
>
> Not wanting to put too fine a point on it but the 4th level of the MoQ
> is the intellectual level...not the intellect level. There remains
> much confusion (as Bodvar argues... about) the difference between
> intellectualising and intellect.... . I am not convinced how useful
> this distinction is... though I do find the S/O distinction useful as
> an intellectual PoV. For me, the rigorous distinction presupposes the
> destruction of the mythos as it is incompatible with the logos ( which
> I interpret as the S/O distinction...correct me if I am wrong please).

Steve:
Rather what Bo thinks everyone is confused about is the difference
between intellect and intelligence. I think there is a good
distinction to be made here, but Bo uses these terns differently from
Pirsig.


Andre:
> The mythos over logos remains a central theme in ZMM. A mind divided
> agains itself, and repeated in LILA...the peyote experience with the
> Indians. Both the mythos and the logos are present as static PoV's
> within the totality of our own static PoV's. ( come to mind is Carl
> Jung with his arch-types...'collectively shared memories' [ whether
> one is aware of them or not] (cringe goes Bodvar!!!).
>
> Phaedrus makes it very explicit that with Aristotle our scientific
> understanding of reality was born. A powerfully argued logos designed
> to overthrow the mythos.... But the mythos has never been overthrown.

Steve:
Sounds good. SOM promoted a myth of independence of intellect from the
mythos--ideas arising from nature rather than from social patterns.


Andre:
> It is still with us ( and perhaps in the not too distant future
> Aristotle will become part of this 'realm')... in the form of rituals
> and customs that we commonly name culture. If culture is the social/
> intellectual level then this is perhaps the battle ground...the
> intersection where the code of the moral battle (social/ intellectual)
> is taking place.But it is a bit more complex than this because what
> this shows is that it is not only a battle between levels but also a
> battle at the same level...namely the intellectual level.



Pirsig agrees:
"I think the conflicts mentioned here are
intellectual conflicts in which one side clings to an intellectual
justification of existing
social patterns and the other side intellectually opposes the existing
social patterns. "



Andre:
> If the mythos is an intellectual PoV and if S/O is an intellectual PoV then
> you have a mind divided against itself.


Steve:
I think the mythos is best associated with social patterns.

Also, "S/O" is shorthand for something that is best made explicit
because I am never sure whether you are talking about subjects and
objects or subjective-objective epistemological or ontological
distinctions distinctions. Pirsig has no problem integrating subjects
and objects into his philosophical system, but he has some interesting
things to say about subjectivity and objectivity.

Andre:
> The MoQ can be seen as an attempt at reconcilliation and integration.
> Pirsig has argued in LILA that a 'scientific' understanding of reality
> is just as much 'grounded' in the social level as the 'mythological'
> understanding is. This reconcilliation and integration has occurred
> through a shift in assumptions upon which each is based ( myth and the
> gods, science and SOM). The shift is of course that Quality/ Value is
> the monism and the source of experience.

Steve:
Agreed, except that the MOQ does not resolve all conflict. It gives us
a framework for characterizing conflict.

Pirsig:
"...I’ve concluded that the biggest improvement I could make in the
MOQ would be to block the
notion that the MOQ claims to be a quick fix for every moral problem in the
universe. I have never seen it that way. The image in my mind as I wrote it
was of a large football field that gave meaning to the game by telling you who
was on the 20-yard line but did not decide which team would win. That was
the point of the two opposing arguments over the death penalty described in
Lila.That was the point of the equilibrium between static and Dynamic
Quality. Both are moral arguments. Both can claim the MOQ for support. Just
as two sides can go before the U.S. Supreme Court and both claim
constitutionality, so two sides can use the MOQ, but that does not mean that
either the Constitution or the MOQ is a meaningless set of ideas. Our whole
judicial system rests on the presumption that more than one set of
conclusions about individual cases can be drawn within a given set of moral
rules. The MOQ makes the same presumption."



Best,
Steve