[MD] Intellect's Symposium

[skutvik at online.no]

Mati, all.

6 Jan. you wrote:

> I realize it seems to some totally nuts that a concept and value such
> as intellect did not magically assert itself until Aristotle's wrestle
> with the issue of reality and gives us the s/o split, however the act
> of consciously thinking, which some of you have proposed as intellect,
> is as old as the dawn of mankind. I will share from Pirsig letter to
> Paul Turner....

After Steve's series of "...anything you say I can say 'no' to ..." posts I 
thought of bringing up the Paul Turner letter again, but then thought 
what's the use, I have pointed to it so many times without any effect. I 
once called the MOQ an unfinished symphony, but perhaps it's a 
double symphony, there are enough material to support Steve's 
interpretation and just as much to support the SOL. However, it is a 
fact that Pirsig has shifted ground regarding the intellectual level and 
as the PT letter is his latest on that issue it ought to carry much weight.  
.     

    "There has been a tendency to extend the meaning of "social" 
    down into the biological with the assertion that, for example, 
    ants are social, but I have argued that this extends the 
    meaning to a point where it is useless for classification. I said 
    that even atoms can be called societies of electrons and 
    protons. And since everything is thus social, why even have 
    the word? I think the same happens to the term, "intellectual," 
    when one extends it much before the Ancient Greeks.* If one 
    extends the term intellectual to include primitive cultures just 
    because they are thinking about things, why stop there? How 
    about chimpanzees? Don't they think? How about 
    earthworms? Don't they make conscious decisions? How 
    about bacteria responding to light and darkness? How about 
    chemicals responding to light and darkness? Our intellectual 
    level is broadening to a point where it is losing all its meaning. 
    You have to cut it off somewhere,......  

> Snipppppppp.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
> The reason I seemed to snip so vigorously is that was in totally
> agreement with Pirsig says here until he shares his definition of
> intellect in which my head crashes into the keyboard with frustration.

Right, if this isn't a rejection of the "thinking intellect" nothing is. 

> His definition does more narrowly defines intellect than "thinking" or
> "Thinking about thinking".  He says, ..... 

    " and it seems to me the greatest meaning can be given to the 
    intellectual level if it is confined to the skilled manipulation of 
    abstract symbols that have no corresponding particular 
    experience and which behave according to rules of their own."  

Right again. No sooner had he said the right thing before he quickly 
lapses back into this (language) definition that again sends the 4th. 
level back into some remote past. 

> I truly admired MoQ for it's simplicity and then Pirsig gives us this.
>  Based on this definition we can use some of the earliest "languages"
> even the old testament could meet this criteria. Eventhough just a
> paragraph earlier Pirsig states, " But if one studies the early books
> of the Bible or if one studies the sayings of primitive tribes today,
> the intellectual level is conspicuously absent."  Lets look at the
> first three words of the old testement, "In the Begining..."   The
> language is a "skill manipulation of abstract symbols" of a concept
> ("the Beginning") to define a reality that understands time/space
> continuum, a beginning / end (according to rules of their own)"  If
> this isn't your cup of tea various abstract mathematical concepts
> existed long before the ancient Greeks that could meet this criteria,
> heck by this criteria you could argue that hmmmm..... "just thinking"
> could meet this criteria.  I have long admired MoQ for it's simplicity
> however in this single definition that Pirsig offer it seem to
> undermine everything that he has achieved with MoQ.

Spot on,  and  when I pointed to the conspicuously absent intellect in 
the early books indicates a " conspicuous absence of SOM" as well, 
he started about an "early SOM" exemplified by warning cries about 
crocodiles .... !!  and I understood that he now was willing to even drop 
the SOM (as what the MOQ opposes) to avoid the S/O intellect and 
leave it a mere "mysticism".    

> I will share again that with the ancient Greeks something special
> happened.  They questioned reality as never before.  Thales,
> Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Xenophanes, Anaxagoras and others
> questioned the nature of reality.  They experimented with abstract
> ideas that tried to explain the world/reality as never before.  They
> wanted to understand the world to answer questions the gods/social
> level had no answers for.  They were trying to take thinking to the
> next level.  It is only when the advent of the s/o split that perhaps
> for the first time in history that understanding the world was not
> beholden to the social level.   So much of Plato's Symposium was
> beholden to the social level, in fact I am hard pressed to find where
> it is not.  All thinking before the s/o split was either beholden or
> arrested to the social level.  Had the Symposium had taken place, let
> say, 200 years later it wouldn't have been presented in a manner that
> would be quiet different because of the s/o split and how the reality,
> which love exists, would be viewed.  Actually in some respects I guess
> the new symposium would have not been as entertaining as the old one.

Correct, ZAMM's presentation of the emergence of SOM, it's taking 
precedence over the old Aretê, is in a MOQ retrospect the intellectual 
level emerging from its social home. That's the only interpretation that 
gives the MOQ its explanatory power. The Paterson interpretation with 
intellect=mind and all levels - plus the MOQ itself - existing in our 
minds is just more SOM.    

> Maybe it time for a new symposium!  Heck, I will turn my backyard into
> a stately affair with all the fixins of a great feast and endless
> drink and invite you all over.  I propose that the topic is intellect.
>  Hmmm.... perhaps I should consult with my wife first. :-)

That would have been something, a turning point in MOQ's history. Its 
Nicene Synod!!   

Thanks Mati you made my day.

Bodvar















> 
> Respectfully,
> Mati
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