[MD] Re Proposed solution to SOL/Intellectual level

[Mary]

Hello everyone,

Krimel:
Symbols are the most complex of the three kinds of sign relations. In
symbolic signs, the connection between signifier and signified is entirely
arbitrary. Symbolic signs are socially mediated and depend entirely on
culturally established rules and conventions. Language is indeed a symbolic
system. Speaking IS symbol manipulation. What possible justification could
there be for claiming otherwise?
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Yes, your explanation is correct.  If you Google "symbol manipulation" you
come up with pages and pages of discussion on how this can be implemented
in computer languages.  I had to dig pretty hard to come up with the 3
quotes I posted; but, I do not for a minute think Pirsig is saying that the
Intellectual Level is mere symbolic representation ala computers.  There's
more to it than that. 

"Platt's Principles of the MOQ" (thanks, Platt!  A truly excellent summary!)
which Marsha posted for us all on Saturday (thanks, Marsha!), negates the
idea that the Intellectual Level is nothing more than basic symbol
manipulation.  It can't be since each level evolves from the level below it.
Basic symbol manipulation must have started in the Biological Level.  The
Social Level depends on it, after all.  I am starting to wonder if Pirsig
meant something more along the lines of the Carl Rove example I found.
Especially after reading the next quote which Andre provided:

Andre:
I have come to conclude that we are looking at the wrong section in Pirsig's
letter to Paul Turner, the section I posted to Ian and Arlo. Here it is:

'What complicates all this discrimination between intellectual and social
thought are intellectual patterns that are no longer intellectually valid
but are sustained by the social traditions that they created long ago.
Religious beliefs are in this class. Classical physics is in this class. I
think much of the opposition to the MOQ falls in this class as well'. 
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At first read, one might thing the Carl Rove example demonstrates the Social
Level.  But does it really?  Mr. Rove seems to be manipulating socially held
beliefs in service to a higher purpose that is not necessarily transparent
in his arguments.  This is cunning.  So help me here.  I ask you one and
all, is Carl Rove demonstrating a Social Level pattern or an Intellectual
Level one?  Why?

The Carl Rove Example:
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http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Symbol+manipulation+and+boomerang+spin.(CALLIN
G+OUT+THE+SYMBOL+RULERS)-a0138483284

First, Rove has become a master at putting out images that first strike the
viewer or reader at the lower level of abstracting, nearer the sensory
level, and then encourage a big semantic leap to a higher level, of
political theory, social values, or cultural bias. 

He has done that with rhetoric and other symbol manipulation. He created
sound bites and visual images of George W. Bush that convinced millions of
Americans he shared their values and was better for the country than Kerry.
Bush came across as the plain-spoken, Christian-values candidate. Rove did
that again in his speech about 9/11, using language that invoked emotional,
sensory reactions and then sent you soaring to those higher-order biased
abstractions. 

Rove expertly takes a slice of rhetoric, or part of what sounds like a
factual statement, and uses it out of context. To use general semantics
terms, he knows how to create elementalism--symbols and images that seem to
take on a truth of their own even though they are not in their original
context.
-----

Mary

- The most important thing you will ever make is a realization.