[MD] Intellect's Symposium

[Krimel]

Steve:
You are correct that the intellectual level is not to be understood in
terms of higher or lower IQ, but since Pirsig explained the intellect
in LC as "simply thinking" it is clear that it actually does have to
do with thinking. Intellectual patterns are patterns of thought or
habits of mind with the caution that if you are thinking of thinking
as applying to worms then that is not what Pirsig means by "simply
thinking." Thinking for Pirsig is the manipulation of symbols that
stand for patterns on experience. Patterns of such manipulation is
what Pirsig means by intellectual patterns.

[Krimel]
I think this account still allows the intellectual "level" to exist in just
one head. The intellectual "level" arises from the social level and as such
requires a social dimension. If not then the intellectual level could as
easily arise from the biological level. This point I have been attempting to
make is that the intellectual level is comprised of shared ideas. One head
can participate in the intellectual level just as individual organisms can
participate in the biological and social levels. But no individual can
constitute a level.

For example, Archimedes apparently developed a form of calculus almost 2000
years before Newton. It was an intellectual pattern of profound importance
that did not become part of the intellectual "level" because no one else
either read it or understood it. It was not shared.