[MD] Intellect's Symposium

[Krimel]

[Mary]
>Mati: And I quote Pirsig...."  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."

Pirsig's letter to the Apostle Paul - or was it The Turner Diaries?, re the
Intellectual Level: "the skilled manipulation of abstract symbols that have
no corresponding particular experience and which behave according to rules
of their own."

Wouldn't it have been best for Pirsig to just leave well enough alone with
the first statement?  The second brings obfuscation and changes the intent
of the first entirely, looks like.  

[Krimel]
Actually, we would all be better served by omitting the first statement. The
second is almost a textbook definition of language. Language is the means by
which we humans express and preserve our thoughts. 

[Mary]
To clarify the Intellectual level, would it be useful to explain what
exactly it is that is missing in the early books of Bible?

[Krimel]
In the first statement Pirsig seems be channeling Julian Jaynes' "The
Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind." Jaynes
uses the same argument but he is talking about conscious self awareness NOT
"intellect". Jaynes argues that before about 3000 years ago people did not
think for themselves, they heard voices in their heads.