[MD] Intellectual and Social

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Steve,

Steve said about his idea:
It comes from Wim. Remember him?

Matt:
Yes, I do: Wim Nusselder.  We started writing here at just 
about the same time.  I liked him.

Steve said:
I'm not sure that it makes sense to say that the train of 
thought needs social patterns to intercede. Intellectual 
patterns are social through and through by the "mythos 
over logos" argument.

Matt:
Heh, well, I think pretty much everybody misunderstood 
what I was saying here.  I wasn't saying, as I think Mary 
said and everybody jumped on board in thinking that's 
what I was saying, that social patterns control intellectual 
patterns--I was trying to identify a way of thinking about 
how they interact.  The question is: since inferential 
thinking can continue on indefinitely, how is it that we 
stop?  Habits of satisfaction, conclusions to problems we 
are pleased with, was my answer--these habits take on 
something we could call "authority."

Since the patterns at different levels _must_ interact, 
people do need an answer to that question.  They do 
need to specify how the levels interact.

The thing to particularly bear in mind is how you balance 
the opposite philosophical intentions of the 
mythos-over-logos argument and the "distinctness" 
clause in Pirsig's articulation of the levels.  The former is 
reductionistic--where Platonic philosophers wanted to 
draw a big, bright sharp line between logos and mythos, 
anthopologists were saying, "Nah, nah--not so fast."  
The latter clause is anti-reductionistic--these specified 
levels are different beasts for definite and specifiable 
reasons.  It's defining the specification we've been 
having trouble with all these years.

In the set-up I offered, I was suggesting how the 
intellectual interacts with the social, and then the social 
with the biological level, to thus produce action from a 
thought (remembering Pirsig's claim that you can't leap 
levels).

I don't have any particular stake in this game, and so I 
have no other thoughts, except that I would urge that 
everyone who thinks that need to understand the 
Metaphysics of Quality take it as a necessary piece that 
articulation of how--in a definite kind of way--the levels 
interact with each other.  That's what I don't think Pirsig 
ever did, and it's led a lot of confusion (and/or creative 
interpretation like the above).

Matt
 		 	   		  
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