[MD] Metaphysics

[John Carl]

Thanks Steve,

I've believed all you say here below, but I've not seen such a clear
explanation with supporting quotes as you provide.

I especially appreciate you providing  the point Pirsig makes about "the
beginning of history"  and would point out to some on this list who think
otherwise, that this does NOT imply that there was no intellectual patterns
before history, we just don't have any evidence or record of it so we can't
say much about it.

He also assigns social patterns to primates.


John



On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 6:31 AM, Steven Peterson
<peterson.steve at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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
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