[MD] Metaphysics

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Mary, All,

There is a common misconception about the MOQ that I can't tell if
you've fallen into or not. It is that there are biological level
people, and social level people, and intellectual level people. The
levels do not represent types of people, they are types of patterns of
value. Every person is a forest of patterns of all four levels.

Pirsig:
"If you compare the levels of static patterns that compose a human being to
the ecology of a forest, and if you see the different patterns sometimes in
competition with each other, sometimes in symbiotic support of each other,
but always in a kind of tension that will shift one way or the other,
depending on evolving circumstances, then you can also see that evolution
doesn't take place only within societies, it takes place within individuals
too.  It's possible to see Lila as something much greater than a customary
sociological or anthropological description would have her be.  Lila then
becomes a complex ecology of patterns moving toward Dynamic Quality.
Lila individually, herself, is in an evolutionary battle against the
static
patterns of her own life."

Steve:
You may fairly frequently hear talk on this forum about a given
person, say GW Bush, being "at the social level," while another, say
Al Gore, being "at the intellectual level," but these sorts of
categorizations of people are never made by Pirsig, and Pirsig
insists, as you have said before, that IQ is not what Pirsig means by
the intellectual level.

Pirsig: "Both “the genius” and the mentally retarded person are at the
social level. At the intellectual level would be the law that requires
them to be treated equally."

"My statement that “Both ‘the genius’ and the mentally retarded person
are at the social level.” is intended to refute the statement that
“the genius appears to be on a higher evolutionary level.” A person
who holds an idea is a social entity, no matter what ideas he holds.
The ideas he holds are an intellectual entity, no matter who holds
them."

Steve:
In other words, personalities are all always social patterns, and the
arguments they make, whether in defense of existing social patterns
like so-called traditional marriage or promoting the independence of
scientific research from politics, are all always intellectual
patterns.

Pirsig:
"After the beginning of history inorganic, biological, social and
intellectual patterns
are found existing together in the same person. 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. A
social pattern which would be unaware of the next higher level would
be found among prehistoric people and the higher primates when they
exhibit social learning that is not genetically hard-wired but yet is
not symbolic."


Best,
Steve




On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Mary <marysonthego at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Steve,
>
> Glad you asked.  I think I've already said this in previous posts today, but
> I am disturbed by Pirsig's definition of the Intellectual level.  He seems
> to equate it with abstract thinking in a letter he wrote to somebody
> (Turner?) which I, admittedly, have not read in its entirety.
>
> What?  The Intellectual level is not the mechanistic level of achieving the
> ability to engage in abstract thought.  Abstract thinking has been around
> for millennia.  What distinguishes the Intellectual level for me is that is
> _values_ questioning assumptions, beliefs, or whatever you wish something to
> be.  In particular, it values rising above the ego to seek fundamental
> truths, even if they prove the seeker wrong. Only by valuing truth above ego
> can humanity hope to even notice that Quality exists.
>
> - Mary